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Ideals of Life: 



Wisdom of the Ages 



A SERIES OF WHOLESOME, PRACTICAL TOPICS, ON WHICH ARE 

PRESENTED THE BEST THINGS FROM MORE THAN TWO 

HUNDRED GREAT THINKERS AND ACTORS 

OF ALL TIMES. 



BY 

OSGOOD E. FULLER, M. A., 

Author of *' The Year of Christ." 



*\ 



"For mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men." 

—Shakespeare. 



DETROIT: 
J. C. FULLER & CO. 

1880. 



• 1 x 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

O. E. FULLER, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE 



l HE Situation," says Mr. Carlyle, "that has 
not its Duty, its Ideal, was never yet occupied 
by man." This fact implies at least two more : 

I. We succeed in any position just in proportion 
as we keep before us and seek to realize the Ideal 
of Excellence which that position requires. 

II. The man or woman without an Ideal is 
nothing but a weary, hopeless plodder. 

Appreciating, therefore, the importance of prop- 
er conceptions of Life in its manifold aspects, the 
Author and Editor of this volume has aimed to 
construct a series of wholesome Ideals, or Patterns 
of Life ; which, he trusts, will prove suggestive and 
helpful to all who are preparing to take their 
place in the great arena of action, as also to those 
already in the midst of the battle ; always striving 
to illustrate, in some sort, the greatness of Truth, 
"the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." 

And since passages from Life's Drama are 
found, in the most eminent degree, along the trial- 
paths of the great Thinkers and Actors of the 
world, his chief reliance for material, after that 
afforded by the Divine Master, has been the out- 
come or record of their lives — 



" Lives spent in serving God 



Through labor for Humanity." 
Detroit, July, 1880. O. E. F. 



Life is to labor where'er Duty's voice 

May call, with strength to spurn the baser choice 

And who so triumphs, angels write his name 
As one deserving more than mortal fame. 

The conflict is at hand! Take tip thy shield, 
My soul! and to whatever battle-field 

Thotc rangest, nerve thyself to courage there, 
And, flinging scorn upon that word Despair, 

Remember aye this verse of lofty cheer : 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here. 



CONTENTS. 



J>ari Hir*t« 



Page 

Key-Notes 10 

What to Live For . 11 

Pursuit of the Ideal 18 

Duty ....... 24 

Work 27 

Work and Worship . 30 

Life-Work 32 

Concentration ... 42 

Prudence 45 



Page 

Perseverance .... 47 

Economy 51 

Labor and Greatness 57 

Failures and Successes 63 

Prayer 69 

Faith 74 

Hope 77 

Charity 80 

The Day of Judgment 85 



fnv\ jiBtnttitn 



Key-Notes 90 

God 91 

The Second Man . . 94 

Immanuel 100 

Simplicity 103 

Virtue 105 

Goodness 108 

Conscience , ■ . Ill 
Truth and Obedience 114 



Uprightness 
Courtesy . 
Courage . 
Decision . 
Character 
Common Sense 
Time. — A Ballad for 

New- Year Day 
Eternity . . . 
(v) 



116 
119 
125 
130 
133 
137 

140 
148 



VI 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



fnv\ 

Page 
Key-Notes .... 152 

Education 153 

Teachers 160 

Books 165 

Encouragement, or What I 

Carried to College 171 

Ambition 178 

Opportunities . . . 182 

Employment .... 185 



trfr* 



Page 

Sponge, or Fountain . 189 


Home .... 


. 190 


Childhood . . . 


. 193 


Plighted Love . 


. 197 


Wedded Love . 


. 201 


Children . . . 


. 206 


Woman's Work . 


. 211 


Health . . . 


. 220 


Recreation . , 


. 225 



fnx\ %*uvfy. 



Key-Notes . . . 


232 


Reformation . . . 


. 268 


The Two Helpers . 


233 


The Seven Words 


276 


Purity 


238 


Forgiveness . . . 


. 278 


Food for the Soul . 


245 


Sympathy .... 


. 282 


Temptation .... 


250 


Repentance . . . 


288 


The Angel of Prayer 255 


Forsaken .... 


291 


Tribulation .... 


258 


Spiritual Thirst . 


296 


Gilead 


260 


Life's Completion . 


300 


Affliction .... 


262 


Death 


306 




fnv\ 


V»*. 




Key-Notes .... 


316 


The Flowers . . 


348 


Immortality .... 


317 


Wages of Sin . . 


352 


Personality Forever 


326 


Heaven .... 


358 


Satisfied 


333 


Hell 


362 


The Riddle of the 




The Divine Law . 


365 


Sphinx 


337 


Resignation . . . 


368 


Unbelief 


342 


Life 


371 


Under the Stars . ^ 


345 


In One 


376 



CONTENTS. 



Jnri jKrtft. 



Key-Notes .... 384 

The Beautiful Plant 385 

Brotherhood . . . 390 

Eloquence .... 398 

Fame 400 

Pastors 404 

Zeai 406 

Nature 408 



Cheerfulness . . . 


414 


Competition . . . . 


420 


Cold- Water Pourers 


425 


Detraction .... 


431 


Temperance .... 


435 


Honesty 


441 


Devotion, or the 




Secret of Success . 


445 



JTari JBsasttty 



Key-Notes .... 452 

Truth 453 

But One Physician . 460 

Riches 464 

Appreciation. . . . 468 

Evil-Eyed .... 469 

Greatness 470 

Originality .... 474 



Music 479 

Confusion 482 

Conversion .... 486 

Imagination .... 489 
The Great Stone Face 494 

Patience 496 

Reward 499 



•nti JttgW. 



Key-Notes .... 504 

Learning 505 

Money ...... 510 

Contentment. . . . 513 

Transformations . . 517 

Fate ...... 521 

Freedom ..... 525 

Action 528 



The Soldier of Christ 533 

Rest 535 

Thanks ...... 539 

Prayers 544 

Praises 560 

Proverbs 563 

Index of Authors . 575 

Index of Subjects . 593 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



UffttsfraHott*. 



Page 

1. Morning Frontis-piece. 

2. " When I have idle been" 80 

3. The Spendthrift 52 

4- "Thou art the true and undefiled" 103 

5. " The beauty of a ivayside flower " 105 

6. u The Hours swept on in their rapid flight" . . . HI 

7. " God's music round the common hearth''' .... 191 

8. "Dear Recreation claims her hour " 225 

9. "Behold this angel — not one in disguise — " .... 234 

10. "Is there any ease from my pain to be had ?" . . 260 

11. "By and by another sleep'''' 333 

12. "And with their vernal beauty rife" ...... 348 

13. Nooning ■ 886 

14. The Matin-Bell : . . Jfi8 

15. "The river of beneficence to w,an" 445 

16. " What though the venerable oak be broken" . . . 455 

17. "Let crimson Battle tread on many a bosom" . . . 460 

18. "The major notes and minor" 479 

19. " The glory of the summer mom" 499 

20. "He is the rainbow of the heart" 517 

21. " The thread of life will soon be wound" .... 552 

22. "There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" 567 



f. 



!**-S***8- 



Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. — Hebrews, x. 9. 

Men must know that in this theatre of human life it remaineth only 
to God and the angels to be lookers-on. — Lord Bacon. 

It is an uncontroverted truth that no man ever made an ill figure 
who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them. 

— Dean Swift. 

I have never known an individual, least of all an individual of genius, 
healthy or happy without a profession, i. e., some regular employment, 
which does not depend on the will of the moment, and which can be 
carried on so far mechanically, that an average quantum only of health, 
spirits and intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge. 

— Coleridge. 

Time and patience change the mulberry leaf to satin. 

— Oriental Proverb. 

Do what thou dost as if the earth were heaven, 
And that thy last day were the judgment day. 

— Charles Kingsley. 



(10) 



Ideals of Life. 



Wfynl fa Jtfas °^xt^ + 

^HROUGH purity and strength of will 
*^ To work to some high mark, 
Which in the heavens is shining still 
When all below is dark. 

The Ideals of Life, which Wisdom has hung 
out in the firmament of Humanity, are like 
the stars in multitude. Like the stars, too, they 
have a common centre, around which they revolve, 
and from which they derive their glory. And that 
centre is the life-giving Ideal suggested by the pro- 
phetic announcement, " Lo, I come to do Thy will, 
O God," rounded by these other words of the Divine 
Man, " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent 
me and to finish His work." 

Work is the essence of all wholesome Ideals, 
heaven-appointed work, of the heart, of the brain, 
of the hands ; 

Something to be done, 
Something to be won; 

(ID 



12 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

and under die Eye which is always a glory to die 
diligent and a terror to the idle. 

Work, glorified as duty, is the perennial foun- 
tain of happiness, and the source of all that is 
excellent in the earth. " There is always hope in 
a man," says Mr. Carlyle, " that actually and earn- 
nestly works. In idleness alone is there perpetual 
despair." 

Work is the law of our being — the living prin- 
ciple that carries men and nations onward. The 
greater number of men have to work with their 
hands, as a matter of necessity, in order to live; 
but all must work in one way or another, if they 
would enjoy life as it ought to be enjoyed. 

Labor may be a burden and a chastisement, but 
it is also an honor and a glory. Without it nothing 
can be accomplished. All that is great in man 
comes through work, and civilization is its product. 
Were labor abolished, the race of Adam were at 
once stricken by moral death. 

It is idleness that is the curse of man — not labor. 
Idleness eats the heart out of men as of nations, and 
consumes them as rust does iron. When Alexan- 
der conquered the Persians, and had an opportunity 
of observing their manners, he remarked that they 
did not seem conscious that there could be anything 
more servile than a life of pleasure, or more princely 
than a life of toil. 

When the Emperor Severus lay on his death- 
bed at York, whither he had been borne on a litter 
from the foot of the Grampians, his final watchword 



WHAT TO LIVE FOB. 13 

to his soldiers was, " Laboremus " (we must work) ; 
and nothing but constant toil maintained the power 
and extended the authority of the Roman generals. 

In describing the earlier social condition of Italy, 
when the ordinary occupations of rural life were 
considered compatible with the highest civic dignity, 
Pliny speaks of the triumphant generals and their 
men returning contentedly to the plough. In those 
days the lands were tilled by the hands even of 
generals, the soil exulting beneath a ploughshare 
crowned with laurels, and guided by a husbandman 
graced with triumphs : " Ipsorum tunc manibus im- 
peratortim colebantur agri : ut fas est credere gau- 
dente terra vomere laureato et triumphale aratore!' 
It was only after slaves became extensively em- 
ployed in all departments of industry that labor 
came to be regarded as dishonorable and servile. 
And so soon as indolence and luxury became the 
characteristics of the ruling classes of Rome, the 
downfall of the empire, sooner or later, was inevit- 
able. — Samuel Smiles. 

Happiness, prosperity and safety in any attained 
position depend upon work, which, of some sort or 
other, may be pursued by every member of the race. 
" We are not born," says Goethe, " to solve the 
problem of the universe, but to find out what we 
have to do, and to confine ourselves within the 
limits of our power of comprehension." And we 
need not go far to make the discovery. Providence 
reveals to every man, who has eyes to see and ears 
to hear, his proper work. And then the mark of 
honor and glory is to do it faithfully. 



14 J DUALS OF LIFE. 

I have always remembered something I heard 
many years ago of the late Mr. Gray, of Boston, 
"Billy Gray," as he was commonly called, who from 
nothing made a vast estate. Standing one day on 
the deck of one of his numerous ships, he observed 
a carpenter busy at some matter of repairs. " Johnny 
Thompson," said he, " why do you not do it so in- 
stead of the way you are doing it ? " " Billy Gray," 
replied the man, " why do you speak so to me ? 
Don't I remember you when you were nothing but 
a poor drummer-boy ? " " Ah," rejoined Mr. Gray, 
"ah, Johnny Thompson, but didnt I drum well?''' 
I have thought of this a thousand times, for there is 
a great deal in it. To do well what we have to do, 
this sums up the whole practical end of living. The 
honest purpose and endeavor to do so puts every- 
one on an equal footing of worthiness. It is the 
secret of acceptable goodness, and the secret also 
of happiness. All true happiness, all that is worth 
the name, lies in a harmony between the spirit of 
our life and the duties of our place in life. 

One of the pleasantest sights of serene happi- 
ness I ever saw was an old woman, whose life was 
narrowed down and restricted by infirmity to the sole 
activity of sitting in an arm-chair by the fireside of a 
humble dwelling - and knitting and mending the 
stockings of the children and grandchildren that 
could play and work. Thankful for the arm-chair 
and the clean-swept hearth, she passed her con- 
tented and cheerful days in doing well what she 
could do. To me that old arm-chair was trans- 



WHAT TO LIVE FOR. 15 

figured to a throne of glory more to be envied 
than an imperial throne filled by a selfish, ambitious 
monarch, and a divine radiance invested its occu- 
pant and all her homely implements and humble 
industry that outshone the glitter and the glare of 
golden sceptres and jewelled swords of state. 

To do our duty well — whatever it be, whether to 
sweep the streets, to saw wood, or grind knives, 
whatever lowliest work it be — to do it well, to do 
it in a sense of duty, unites us to the Highest One 
by a bond that nothing can break, gains us a posi- 
tion in the infinite spiritual universe, from which 
nothing can cast us down. We may not have 
received ten talents, nor two, nor even one, but 
only a very small fraction of one. No matter, if 
faithful, we shall live to just as good a purpose, so 
far as our worthiness is concerned, as though we 
had a million talents and improved them all. The 
poorest cobbler who, in a dutiful spirit, out of love 
to God and man, does the work of his calling, is 
just as acceptable as the righteous ruler of the 
greatest kingdom on the earth, just as acceptable 
as the highest archangel that stands before the 
Throne of the universe, or flies on flaming wings 
to carry the orders of his Sovereign to the armies 
of Heaven that have their stations among the stars. 
— C. S. Henry. 

To do our duty in that station of life into which 
it has pleased God to call us, is the infinite thing to 
live for : which is full of blessed realities in the pres- 
ent, and prophetic of an ever-brightening future. 



16 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

" Forgetting those things which are behind," how- 
ever pleasant they have been, the diligent doer of 
duty has but one aim, and that is to press for- 
ward. 

Every young man, as he stands on the threshold 
of life, preparing to step forward into the vague, 
uncertain future, may take to his heart the trumpet- 
like words of Saint Simon: " L'age d'or, quune 
aveugle tradition a place jusqiiici dans la passe, 
est devant nous" — (The golden age, which a blind 
tradition has hitherto placed in the past, is before 
us). What has been possible to our fellows is 
possible to us, and something, perhaps, which never 
was by them achieved. Hope is ours, and love, 
and truth, and honor ; high aspiration and earnest 
prayer ; the consciousness of a battle well fought 
and a victory well won. The race may be a long 
one, and the way rugged and thorny, but mayhap 
there are flowers in many a bosky nook, and we 
shall feel, though we may not discern, the presence 
of the angels like a soundless wind on a summer 
sea. We have only to take heart and work. We 
know the conditions of success — diligence and pa- 
tience, and a firm purpose and a lofty aim, self-reli- 
ance, courage, self-denial, self-elevation. These are 
within our reach if we submit to the necessary dis- 
cipline. And why should we not ? Is not this life 
the vestibule of eternity, and shall we neglect or 
despise it as a thing worthless and wearisome ? Do 
we not know it to be the training place of our spir- 
itual nature ? Do we not know that the faculties 



WHAT TO LIVE FOB. 17 

cultivated here will grow into a glorious fruition 
hereafter ? Ah, the nobleness of labor ! How it 
develops the thought, how it braces up the soul, 
how it crushes back the evil impulse ! When we 
bethink ourselves of the pleasure it yields, of the 
moral elevation which it involves, we are lost in 
wonder at the infatuation of the fools who idly turn 
from it to expend their lives in luxurious indulgence. 
But when we speak of labor we mean something 
more than the occupation of the business day, some- 
thing more than the toil that properly belongs to 
our respective callings ; we mean that general pro- 
cess of culture by which mind, soul and body alike 
are benefited ; we mean all that assiduous prepara- 
tion and finish which carefully occupies the hours 
not devoted to amusement or repose. Our com- 
plex humanity has many sides, all of which demand 
our assiduous vigilance ; this vigilance we regard as 
part and parcel of our daily duty. — W. H. D. 
Adams. 

Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toil- 
worn craftsman that with earth-made implement 
laboriously conquers the earth and makes her 
man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked, 
coarse, wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning vir- 
tue, indefeasibly royal, as if the sceptre of this 

planet Toil on, toil on ; thou 

art in thy duty, be out of it who may ; thou toilest 
for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread. 

A second man I honor, and still more highly : 
him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispen- 



18 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

sable, not daily bread, but the bread of life. Is not 
he, too, in his duty ; endeavoring towards inward 
harmony ; revealing this by act or by word, through 
all his outward endeavors, be they high or low. 
Highest, of all, when his outward and his inward 
endeavors are one ; when we can name him artist ; 
not earthly craftsman only, but inspired thinker, who 
with heaven-made implement conquers heaven for 
us ! — Carlyle. 



JW$wf nl| i\$ %hni 



Who is she that \ooketh forth as the morning, 

Fair as the moon, 

Clear as the sun, 

And terrible as an army with banners ? 

— Song of Solomon, iv. 10. 



,ifi)NE who holds my heart forever, 
^^ And I bless her night and day: 
Night and day where'er I wander, 
She is ever on my way. 

Tender maiden, watchful maiden, 
Friend to me she is alway, 

And with countenance angelic 
All my baser thoughts doth fray. 



PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL. 19 

Now she chides me and she guides me, 

If by chance I go astray : 
Then she scorns me and she warns me, 

If to rest my head I lay. 

Purer than the virgin dew-drops, 

And more beautiful than they, 
Clothed she is in lily-meekness 

And a youth forever May. 

Who would not rejoice to woo her, 

Who is clad in such array? 
Who would not rejoice to win her, 

Who may never know decay? 

Fairer maiden, rarer maiden, 

Poet never may portray; 
Purer maiden, truer maiden, 

Never dwelt in mortal clay. 

And such charms she always weareth, 

And so modest to display ! 
Oh my airy, fairy maiden 

Over me hath perfect sway ! 

Should King Oberon, the Fairy, 

Haply from his kingdom stray, 
And be questioned if he love her, 

He could never answer nay ; 

Such his eager heart to woo her, 
And her to his realm convey, 



20 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Where her beauty would enthrone her 
Queen of every elf and lay. 

Oh, her smile to me is better 
Than the sparkle of Tokay, 

And the sweetness of her silence 
Than all harems of Cathay. 

But, ah me ! she e'er so coy is — 
And I always hate delay — 

Oft my heart grows dark within me, 
Void of hope's celestial ray. 

For when I would fain embrace her, 

Blushingly she flits away, 
Darting, glancing like a sunbeam, 

As if mocking my dismay ; 

Leaving me, and then returning, 
Like the sunlight in the spray ; 

And my soul is half distracted 
With such Tantalus-survey. 

Why will not the cruel maiden 
Once my beauty- thirst allay? 

Doth she stoop at last to vengeance, 
Dooming me a castaway ? 

Airy maiden, fairy maiden, 

Do not keep me thus at bay ; 

Linger yet a little, maiden ; 
Maiden, yet a little stay. 



PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL. 21 

Ah, she will not deign to listen, 

Though I sue and I inveigh ; 
Ah, she will not deign to listen, 

Doth she, then, my love repay ? 

If I ask her if she love me, 

Blushing, she will nothing say, 
Nothing answer to convince me, 

Nothing, neither nay or yea. 

But retreating, softly fleeting, 

Like a rainbow, heavenly gay, 
She doth call me, she doth call me, 

And I cannot but obey. 

And as bold and eager -hearted 

As a school -boy, who at play 
Bright -hued butterflies in chasing 

O'er the fragrant, new -mown hay, 

Vexed, successless, yet determined 

On the capture of his prey, 
Which allures him and eludes him, 

Follow softly as he may; 

I pursue my airy maiden 

From the morning twilight grey, 

Till the mists of evening gather, 
And no conquest doth defray 

All my yeanlings and my heart -beats, 
For she every art doth slay. 



22 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Yet with new and light endeavor, 
To allure her I essay, 

Purposing no base inaction 
And no sluggard's welaway, 

Till I touch the happy altar, 

Crowned on with the fadeless bay. 

And I think my heart grows better, 
And I count not what I pay 

For the airy chase and earthly, 
Where she seemeth to betray ; 

For I feel if here I never 
Win my maiden, as I pray, 

I shall in yon sphere eternal 
Prosper in her love for aye; 

Where the splendor of the virgin 
Satisfies the heart straightway, 

And all work is but the rhythm 
Of a blessed holiday, 

But the worship and the freedom 

Of a blessed holy -day ; 
And the rhyme that never changes, 

Fringes the Celestial Lay. — 



Too late did I love Thee, O Fairness, so ancient 
and yet so new ! Too late did I love Thee ! For 
behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and there 
did I seek Thee ; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly 



PURSUIT OF THE IDEAL. 23 

among the things of beauty Thou madest. Thou 
wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Those 
things kept me from Thee, which, unless they 
were in Thee, were not. Thou calledst, and 
criedest aloud, and forcedst open my deafness. 
Thou didst gleam and shine, and chase away my 
blindness. Thou didst exhale odors, and I drew 
in my breath, and do pant after Thee. I tasted, 
and do hunger and thirst. Thou didst teach me, 
and I burn for Thy peace. — St. Augustine. 

The Situation that has not its Duty, its Ideal, 
was never yet occupied by man. Yes here, in 
this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, 
wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere 
is thy Ideal : work it out therefrom ; and working, 
believe, live, be free. Fool ! the Ideal is in thyself, 
the impediment, too, is in thyself: thy Condition is 
but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out 
of: what matters whether such stuff be of this sort 
or that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, be po- 
etic ? O, thou that pinest in the imprisonment of 
the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a 
kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of 
a truth : the thing thou seekest is already with 
thee, " here or nowhere," couldst thou only see ! — 
Carlyle. 

We cannot understand the Actual of a character 
or system without in some degree entering into its 
Ideal.— Miss Greenwell. 

All visible greatness grows in looking at an in- 
visible that is greater. — James Martineau. 



24 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



"fTHE petty Done, the Undone vast!" 
^ So once a Poet sung, 
By both the Present and the Past 
Upraided, goaded, stung. 

And it were well if all had eyes 

To see the Infinite, 
Humbled, exalted, and grown wise 

In all-enfolding light. 

And it were well if all had pain 
Which passes human speech, 

In view of all there is to gain, 
Not yet within their reach. 

But eyes and pain with valiant heart, 

Abashed by no "Too late," 
To choose Eternal Duty's part 

Where no accusers wait. , 



Duty ! wondrous thought, that workest neither 
by fond insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but 
merely by holding up thy naked law in the soul, and 
so extorting for thyself always reverence, if not 
always obedience ; before whom all appetites are 
dumb, however secretly they rebel. — Kant. 

Duty is far more than love. It is the upholding 
law through which the weakest become strong, with- 



DUTY. 25 

out which all strength is unstable as water. No 
character, however harmoniously framed and glori- 
ously gifted, can be complete without this abiding 
principle : it is the cement which binds the whole 
moral edifice together, without which all power, 
goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can 
have no permanence ; but all the fabric of existence 
crumbles away from under us, and leaves us at last 
sitting in the midst of a ruin, — astonished at our 
own desolation. — Mrs. Jameson. 

Duty is based upon a sense of justice — justice 
inspired by love, which is the most perfect form of 
goodness. Duty is not a sentiment, but a principle 
pervading the life: and it exhibits itself in conduct 
and in acts, which are mainly determined by man's 
conscience and freewill. — Smiles. 

Everybody ought to have a flag — something sa- 
cred, something to live by and die by, convictions 
that one is not only not ashamed of, but counts it 
an honor and a glory to avow. Everybody should 
carry his flag aloft and unfurled, ready to main- 
tain and defend it, to suffer and to die for it if need 
be. The man who has no flag, or does not carry it 
unfurled where duty, honor and manliness bid him 
do so, is a thoroughly base and mean man. He is 
fit neither to live nor to die. So far from having 
anything heroic in him, he lacks the essential ingre- 
dients of tolerable respectability of character. What 
is the worth of a man who does not prefer duty to 
life ? Just nothing at all, or at best he is good for 
nothing but to eat, drink, make money perhaps, and 
3 



26 / DEALS OF LIFE. 

then mould°r to dust. Thousands of men and 
women — soldiers, sailors, medical men, fathers, 
mothers, nurses — do their duty every day in peril 
of their lives. They are not canonized for it, but 
they would be thought meanly of if they did it not. 
How universally the cowardice that shrinks from 
dangerous duty is despised. — C. S. Henry. 

Remember your honor, which raises you above 
fortune and above kings ; by that alone, and not by 
the splendor of titles, is glory acquired — that glory 
which it will be your happiness and pride to trans- 
mit unspotted to your posterity. — Vittoria Co- 
lonna. 

My brother, the brave man has to give his Life 
away. Give it, i advise thee ; — thou dost not ex- 
pect to sell thy Life in an adequate manner ? What 
price, for example, would content thee? The just 
price of thy Life to thee, — why, God's entire Crea- 
tion to thyself, the whole Universe of Space, the 
whole Eternity of Time, and what they hold : that 
is the price which would content thee ; that, and if 
thou wilt be candid, nothing short of that ! It is thy 
all ; and for it thou wouldst have all. Thou art an 
unreasonable mortal ; — or, rather thou art a poor, 
infinite mortal, who, in thy narrow clay-prison here, 
seemest so unreasonable ! Thou wilt never sell thy 
Life, or any part of thy Life, in a satisfactory man- 
ner. Give it, like a royal heart ; let the price be 
nothing : thou hast then, in a certain sense, got All 
for it! — Carlyle. 

I become more and more alive to the happiness 



WORK. 27 

which consists in the fulfillment of Duty, I believe 
there is no other so deep and so real. There is 
only one great object in the world which deserves 
our efforts, and that is, the good of mankind. — De 

TOCQUEVILLE. 

" The word Duty," said George Wilson, a dis- 
tinguished professor in the University of Edinburgh, 
when almost worn out in faithful work, " The word 
Duty seems to me the biggest word in the world, 
and is uppermost in all my serious doings." . 



ark 



jji) LITTLE birds of grace. 
®^ How in my work ye sing ! 
Ye make my heart your nesting - place, 
And all your gladness bring. 

When ye are in my heart, 
How swiftly pass the days ! 

The fears and doubts of life depart 
And leave the room to praise 

My work I find like play, 
And all day long rejoice ; 



28 IDEALS of LIFE. 

But if I linger on my way, 
I hear this warning voice : 

With fervor work and pray, 
And let not coldness come ; 

Or birds of grace will fly away 
To seek a warmer home. 



We enjoy ourselves only in our work, in our 
doings ; and our best doing is our best enjoyment. 
— Jacobi. 

I have fire-proof, perennial enjoyments, called 
employments. — Richter. 

Wouldst thou discover Nature's true path to 
happiness ? Listen to her first command : Labor ! 
The hours fly swiftly to him who has daily occu- 
pation ; a lifetime creeps slowly away with the idle. 
— Leopold. 

All the virtues and joys of life grow up in labor; 
only through labor does a human being become 
truly a man. . . . Work and love, — these are 
the body and soul of human being ; happy is he 
with whom they are one. — Auerbach. 

The very exercise of industry immediately in 
itself is delightful, and hath an innate satisfaction 
which tempereth all annoyance, and even ingratia- 
teth the pains going with it. — Barrow. 

It sweeteneth our enjoyments, and seasoneth 
our attainments with a delightful relish. — Barrow. 

Is the world a great harmonious organ, where 
all parts are played, and where all play parts : and 
must thou alone sit and hear it? — Dr. Donne. 



WORK. 29 

There is no spirituality at all without use. 
Spirituality begins, continues, and culminates in 
use. To be genuinely useful, in any way, is to be 
so far spiritual. To be nobly, comprehensively, 
humanly useful, is to be spiritual in a grand way. 
O. B. Frothingham. 

Work in every hour, paid or unpaid. See only 
that thou work, and thou canst not escape the reward. 
Whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn 
or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to 
thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the 
senses as well as to the thoughts. The reward of a 
thing well done is to have done it. — Emerson. 

A man should inure himself to voluntary labor, 
and should not give up to indulgence and pleasure ; 
as they beget no good constitution of body, nor 
knowledge of the mind. — Socrates. 

Employment, which Galen calls "nature's physi- 
cian," is so essential to human happiness that indo- 
lence is justly considered the mother of misery. — 
Robert Burton. 

The wise prove, and the foolish confess, by their 
conduct, that a life of employment is the only life 
worth leading. — Paley. 



30 WEALS OF LIFE. 



W^xxk mh l(xrr$|tp< 



rO labor is to pray, 
e ** As some dear saint has said ; 
And with this truth for many a day 
Have I been comforted. 

The Lord has made me bold 
When I have labored most, 

And with His gifts so manifold 
Has given the Holy Ghost. 

When I have idle been 
Until the sun went down, 

Mine eyes so dim have never seen 
His bright, prophetic crown. 

O praise the Lord for work 
Which maketh time so fleet, 

In which accusers never lurk, 

Whose end is very sweet. — 



There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacred- 
ness, in Work. Were he never so benighted, for- 
getful of his high calling, there is always hope in a 
man that actually and earnestly works : in Idleness 
alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so 
Mammonish, mean, is in communication with Na- 
ture ; the real desire to cret Work done will itself 




" When I have idle been 
Until the sun went down, 

Mine eyes so dim have never seen 
His bright, prophetic crown." 



WORK AND WORSHIP. 31 

lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's ap- 
pointments and regulations, which are truth. 

The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy 
work and do it. 'Know thyself:' long enough has 
that poor 'self of thine tormented thee; thou wilt 
never get to ' know ' it, I believe ! Think it not thy 
business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an un- 
knowable individual : know what thou canst work 
at ; and work at it, like a Hercules ! That will be 
thy better plan. 

It has been written, ' an endless significance lies 
in Work ; ' a man perfects himself by working. 
Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seed-fields rise 
instead, and stately cities ; and withal the man him- 
self first ceases to be a jungle and foul, unwhole- 
some desert thereby. Consider how, even in the 
meanest sorts of Labor, the whole soul of a man is 
composed into a kind of real harmony the instant 
he sets himself to work ! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, 
Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these, like 
hell-dogs, lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day- 
worker as of every man ; but he bends himself 
with free valor against his task, and all these are 
stilled, all these shrink murmuring far off into their 
caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow 
of Labor in him, is it not as purifying fire, wherein 
all poison is burnt up, and of sour smoke itself there 
is made bright, blessed flame ! — Carlyle. 

All true Work is Religion : and whatsoever Re- 
ligion is not Work may go and dwell among the 
Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or 



32 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

where it will ; with me it shall have no harbor. 
Admirable was that of the old Monks, ' Laborare 
est Orare,' (Work is Worship!. — Carlyle. 

All true Work is sacred ; in all true Work, were 
it but true hand labor, there is something of divine- 
ness. Labor, wide as the Earth, has its summit in 
Heaven. Sweat of the brow ; and up from that to 
sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart, which in- 
cludes all Kepler calculations, Newton meditations, 
all Sciences, all spoken Epics, all acted Heroisms, 
Martyrdoms, — up to that ' Agony of bloody sweat,' 
which all men have called divine ! O, brother, if 
this is not ' worship,' then, I say, the more pity for 
worship ; for this is the noblest thing yet discov- 
ered under God's sky. Who art thou that corn- 
plainest of thy life of toil ? Complain not. Look 
up. my wearied brother ; see thy fellow-workmen 
there, in God's Eternity ; surviving there, they 
alone surviving ; sacred Band of the Immortals, 
celestial Bodyguard of the Empire of Mankind. — 
Carlyle. 



Jttb-![oiji 



^X^ES, I have found the work at last 
"k" Which Providence alone forecast; 



LIFE- WORK. 33 

And nevermore for me is rest, 
Save when I labor at my best. 

Dear younger brother, wouldst thou know 
The way the Master loves to show 
His will and wish? The search is vain, 
Unless it be through toil and pain. 

There is no easy lesson here 
Where wisdom lingers many a year. 
Most their vocation never know, 
Since wisdom comes so slow, so slow ! 

Discerning not the will of God, 
They walk the way the fathers trod, 
And He who marks the sparrow's fall, 
Observes His lowly children all. 

But thou of hunger hast the smart 
Pent up within a conscious heart. 
God's providence is speaking there, 
Telling what thou shouldst do and dare. 

Be bold to heed the silent voice 
And crucify each meaner choice ; 
Or else forever lose the place 
Assigned thee in the realm of Grace. 

God speaks not many times to those 
To whom His will He would disclose. 
Have they, alas, no ears to hear, 
No more, no more He draweth near. 



34 /DEALS OF LIFE. 

He needs thee not against thy will, 
Thy little place His hand can fill. 
From stones can He, of old I AM, 
Raise children unto Abraham. 

So thou, thy work to know and do, 
Must unto Providence be true, 
And heed the signals and the siens, 
Although the light but dimly shines. 



What though the signs are not so plain 
As to shut out all doubt and pain ? 
The doubt and pain will not grow less 
While thou remain'st in idleness. 

What if the signals be but faint, 
And in thy heart there is complaint ? 
Ah, they will all the fainter be 
During thine inactivity. 

When once the signal voice is heard, 
And the unfathomed heart is stirred 
To action, we have found the way 
Where life is greater than to-day, 

(However vast its treasures be) 
And boldly claims eternity. 
Henceforth we no more reckon worth 
By the arithmetic of earth. 

The great is small, the small is great, 
Often in after estimate, 



LIFE- WORK. 35 

And nobler aims and visions rise 
What time we see with other eyes. 

Hast thou despised the little things ? 
Know thou the smallest duty brings 
A prophecy of coming time, 
For thee ignoble or sublime. 

The gifts of God thou dost not use, 
Little or great, thou dost abuse. 
What if — the forfeit comes at last — 
From thee be taken what thou hast ? 

Thy sacred trusts each day increase : 
Evening shall bring a psalm of peace, 
And in a broader circle shine 
The lantern of the Word Divine. 

The blessed things of God no more 
Shall be as shadow, as before, 
But real, precious, and sublime, 
To grow more fair by use and time. 

Stand still, the darkness on thy track 
Pushes no more its column back. 
Halt not, the light gleams wide and far, 
And thine is an unsetting star. 

There always will be clouds. Thy mark 
May sometimes vanish in the dark. 
What then ? Wilt thou at this despair ? 
It is thy trial — oh beware ! 



36 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Renew thy faltering zeal and trust 
The Lord, O creature of the dust. 
Young faith will perish in the night, 
If thou dost only walk by sight. 

Without the sun, the air, the earth, 
The seed comes not unto its birth ; 
Its hidden power of life will die, 
Or dormant in its prison lie. 

Without the word and deed, the thought 
Is to no blessed uses brought, 
But quickly withers from the soul, 
Evanishing beyond control. 

Act to the purpose of thy heart, 
And Providence, with wondrous art, 
Shall fashion it to beauty there, 
Transmuting all thy work and prayer, 

Till it shall come to be thy life, 
Grown strong in every manly strife, 
And, when the time is ripe, approve 
Thee for the Master's work of love. — 



If you desire to represent the various parts in 
life by holes in a table of different shapes, — some 
circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong 
— and the persons acting these parts by bits of 
wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find 
that the triangular person has got into the square 
hole, the oblong into the triangular, while the 



LIFE-WORK. 37 

square person has squeezed himself into the round 
hole. — Sydney Smith. 

The errors committed in the choice of a voca- 
tion are sometimes amusing, or would be so if we 
could forget how serious might have been their 
consequences. The parents of Claude Lorraine, 
who divides with our own Turner the supremacy 
in landscape - painting, would have made him a 
pastry-cook! His brother was a little keener of 
insight, for he took him from the pastry-cook's 
into his own shop, a wood-carver's ; and in this 
kind of work there was at least more room for 
the development of his artistic faculty. Turner 
was intended by his father, for the respectable 
but inglorious trade of a barber. One day, how- 
ever, a design of a coat-of-arms which the boy 
had scratched on a silver salver attracted the at- 
tention of a customer whom his father was shav- 
ing, and he was so struck by its promise that 
he strongly recommended the latter not to inter- 
fere with his son's evident bias. The lover of 
art almost shudders at the thought of what the 
world would have lost had Claude continued a 
pastry - cook, and Turner shaved the bristling 
chins of his father's patrons. — W. H. D. Adams\ 

No doubt parents and guardians have often 
made mistakes ; but far more numerous have 
been the mistakes of young men whom an im- 
prudent ambition or a greed of gain has led into 
paths they were incompetent to tread success- 
fully. As a rule, it is always best to accept and 



38 WEALS OF LIFE. 

act upon the advice of our elders. The avoca- 
tion may be uncongenial, and after a while it may 
appear plainly unsuitable. It will then be open 
to us to seize the first opportunity of choosing 
another career, if this can be done without injury. 
Jntances there will always be, similar to those we 
have already set before the reader, of a strong 
and masterful talent asserting itself in the face of 
every discouragement, and seeking and finding 
its natural and legitimate outlet. But let us re- 
member with humility that such talent is given to 
very few, and with gratitude that Heaven esti- 
mates our life-work noc by its brilliancy but by 
its honesty. If we do our duty, it matters not 
whether we be the leaders in the fore front of 
the battle, or only the rank and file. In fixing 
upon a pursuit, let us, therefore, be guided by 
nobler thoughts than those of ambition, emulation 
or envy. Let us bethink ourselves of the old 
saying that the greatest man is he who chooses 
right with the most unconquerable resolution ; who 
withstands the sorest temptations within and with- 
out ; who patiently bears the weightiest burdens ; 
who is calmest in the storm, and most fearless 
under frown and menace ; whose faith in truth, 
in virtue, in God, is most unfaltering. We can- 
not all be great sculptors, painters, musicians, 
men of letters or successful merchants or wealthy 
manufacturers. The dishonor ^and the failure do 
not lie in the choice of a lowly trade, or even in 
the unfortunate selection of the wrong vocation ; 



LIFE-WORK. 39 

they lie in our not doing the work before us 
with all our might. It is no disgrace to be a 
shoemaker ; but it is a shame for a shoemaker 
to make bad shoes. — W. H. D. Adams. 

" Blessed is he," says Carlyle, " who found his 
work," and, it should be added, who resists all 
temptations and persuasions to abandon it. For 
a man's true work is as sacred as his life ; and 
should never be relinquished but with his life. 
The following parable is a good illustration : — 

There were, once upon a time, two men who 
were friends, but whose characters and pursuits 
in life were different. The one was a lover of 
Beauty, the other a lover, as he said, of Use. 
The latter had given up his life to " practical 
purposes ; " he had built houses for the poor, he 
had arranged the sanitary measures of a city, he 
had visited the prisons and hospitals, and had 
toiled to save disease and crime. And his char- 
acter and strength were suited to this work, so 
that he did it well. 

The other had spent his life in examining the 
Beautiful ; he had studied its laws in nature and 
art, and he devoted himself in retirement to ex- 
pressing what he had discovered in the most 
beautiful manner possible : his enthusiasm pushed 
him to think that men would be interested in his 
work, and his aim was to awaken in the world 
the love of Beauty by giving a high and noble 
pleasure. He did not care to teach morality as 
the first thing, but to make beautiful things fa- 



40 WEALS OF LIFE. 

miliar ; and by bringing these beautiful things 
before men, to refine imaginations not as yet re- 
fined, till they could see the more ideal beauty. 
This being his work, and his character and phy- 
sical temper being suited to it, he did it well, 
and he did nothing else. He did not visit the 
poor, nor was he seen in hospitals. His money 
was spent on beautiful things such as he wanted 
for his work, not on sanitary improvements and 
model cottages. 

With this life and with this expenditure his 
friend became angry. 'What!' he said, 'will 
you make poems while famine is making death ? 
The poor are perishing ; God's children are be- 
ing done to death ; disease and crime are de- 
vouring the nation, and you sit still in your 
poetic and artistic leisure, producing only words. 
Throw away all this useless work, attack evil, 
expose oppression, cleanse the foul dwelling, see 
and realize what poverty and pain mean. To 
what purpose is this waste ? Those things which 
you call beautiful might be sold for much money 
and given to the poor.' So he spake in his dark 
anger ; and the spirit of his friend was moved, 
and he went forth to the rude work of the 
world. It sickened and dismayed him ; his poet- 
ical power went from him ; his faculty for reveal- 
ing the Beautiful passed away ; his delicacy and 
sympathy caused him to break down in contact 
with crime and disease. He tried hard, but it 
was a failure ; his life was ruined and no good 



LIFE-WORK. 41 

was done. He could not do his friends work, 
and trying to do it, he ceased to be able to do 
his own. — Stopford A. Brooke. 

It may be proved, with much certainty, that 
God intends no man to live in this world without 
working ; but it seems to me no less evident that 
he intends every man to be happy in his work. 
It is written " in the sweat of thy brow," but it 
was never written " in the breaking of thy heart," 
thou shalt eat bread : and I find that, as on the 
one hand infinite misery is caused by idle people, 
who both fail in doing what was appointed for 
them to do, and set in motion certain springs of 
mischief in matters in which they should have had 
no concern, so on the other hand, no small 
misery is caused by over-worked and unhappy 
people, in the dark views which they necessarily 
take up themselves, and force upon others, of 
work 'itself. Were it not so, I believe the fact of 
their being unhappy is in itself a violation of di- 
vine law, and a sign of some kind of folly or sin 
in their way of life. Now in order that people 
may be happy in their work, these three things 
are needed : they must be fit for it ; they must 
not do too much of it ; and they must have a 
sense of success in it — not a doubtful sense such 
as needs some testimony of other people for its 
confirmation, but a sure sense, or rather know- 
ledge, that so much work has been done well, 
and faithfully done, whatever the world may think 
or say about it. So that in order that a man 
4 



42 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

may be happy, it is necessary that he should not 
only be capable of his work, but a good judge of 
his work. — Ruskin. 



iotitmtlraltmt* 



^7I70 eyes that see what is divine, 
^^ A heaven-appointed work is mine: 
Naught else have I the power to do, 
And keep the sense of being true. 

For when I sometimes turn aside, 
The still small voice is sure to chide 
And resolutely call me back : 
Peace will not leave her chosen track. 

My lowly work I need not name, 
Which has for thee, perhaps, no claim ; 
Some other work belongs to thee, 
In which thou canst be true and free. 

That work alone pursue — pursue 
Until the earth shall fade from view ; 
And thy devotion will insure 
The daily triumphs that endure. 



Wise concentration of purpose on a single 



CONCENTRATION. 43 

object made Faraday a great chemist. When an 
apprentice in a book -binder's shop, he devoted 
his scanty leisure to the acquisition of the knowl- 
edge for which his soul thirsted. In the hours 
after work he learned the beginnings of his phi- 
losophy from the books given him to bind. 
There were two that helped him materially, the 
"Encyclopaedia Britannica," from which he gained 
his first notions of electricity, and Mrs. Marcet's 
" Conversations in Chemistry," which afforded an 
introduction to that science of wonders. In time 
he obtained his master's permission to attend a 
series of scientific lectures at a Mr. Tatum's, and 
afterwards, through the kindness of a gentleman 
who had noticed and admired his remarkable in- 
dustry and intelligence, he was present at the 
last four public lectures of Sir Humphry Davy. 
"The eager student sat in the gallery, just over 
the clock, and took copious notes of the Profes- 
sor's explanation of radiant matter, chlorine, 
simple inflammables and metals, while he watched 
the experiments that were performed. Afterwards 
he wrote the lectures fairly out in a quarto vol- 
ume that is still preserved ; first, the theoretical 
portions, then the experiments with drawings, 
and finally an index." Sending these notes to 
Sir Humphry Davy, with a letter explaining 
his intense attachment to scientific research, he 
was offered the post of assistant in the laboratory 
of the Royal Institution of London. Gladly he 
accepted it, with its weekly wage of twenty-five 



44 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

shillings and the advantage of a room in the 
house. Thenceforward his career was assured ; 
but it must be remembered that the renown 
which gilded it was won by Faraday's unwav- 
ering pursuit of a single end. — Adams. 

A concentration of energy and talent upon 
the object which it is most important for us to 
secure, implies no absolute disregard of every 
other. Because a traveller presses forward reso- 
lutely to the desired haven, and refuses to wan- 
der from the direct road, it by no means follows 
that he shall have no eyes for the blossoms that 
shine by the wayside, no ears for the music of 
the brook that ripples through the bracken. An 
indifference to everything that brightens or en- 
nobles life is very apt to militate against success 
— success, that is, of the highest and purest 
kind. Because Faraday made chemistry his great 
pursuit, he did not neglect every other branch 
of science. Because John Stuart Mill gave him- 
self up chiefly to political economy and meta- 
physical inquiry, he did not deny himself the 
sweet pleasures of botany and music. — Adams. 

Just as the general who scatters his soldiers 
all about the country ensures defeat, so does he 
whose attention is forever diffused through such 
innumerable channels that it can never gather 
in force on any one point. The human mind, in 
short, resembles a burning-glass, whose rays are 
intense only as they are concentrated. As the 
glass burns only when its light is conveyed to 



PR VDENGE, 45 

the focal point, so the former illumines the world 
of science, literature, or business, only when it is 
directed to a solitary object. Or, to take an- 
other illustration, what is more powerless than 
the scattered clouds of steam as they rise in the 
sky ! They are as impotent as the dewdrops 
that fall nightly upon the earth ; but concen- 
trated and condensed in a steam-boiler, they are 
able to cut through solid rock, to move moun- 
tains into the sea, and to bring the Antipodes 
to our doors. — Anonymous. 



3Pntbmtt& 



c|u)E prudent, yet be not afraid ; 
< ^ No ghost by fear was ever laid, 

Nor any mountain made a plain. 
With bold and prudent step advance 
Without one thought of luck or chance, 

Success will follow in thy train. 

If Prudence but impart her skill, 
The legions of the mighty Will 

Can storm the gates of Paradise : 
W 7 ho has them fighting on his side 
Will from the field in triumph ride, 

Though all the world against him rise. 



|i; IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Prudence is the combination of wisdom, rea- 
son, discretion, and common sense ; the offspring 
of a clear head, a correct judgment, and a good 
heart. It regards the past, the present, and the 
future ; time and eternity ; never shrinks from 
known duty ; acts with coolness and decision ; 
investigates impartiality, reasons correctly, and 
condemns reluctantly. The prudent man meets 
the dispensations of Providence calmly ; views 
mankind in the clear sunshine of charity; is 
guided by the golden rule in his dealings ; cher- 
ishes universal philanthropy ; and soars, in peer- 
less majesty, above the trifling vanities and cor- 
rupting vices of the world, and lives in constant 
readiness to enter the mansions of bliss beyond 
this vale of tears. It is not the consequent re- 
sult of shining talents, brilliant genius or great 
learning. It has been truly said by Dr. Young, 
and demonstrated by thousands, With the talents 
of an angel, a man may be a fool. A profound 
scholar may astonish the world with his scientific 
researches and discoveries ; pour upon mankind 
a flood of light; illuminate and enrapture the 
immortal mind with the beauties of expounded 
revelation ; point erring man to the path of recti- 
tude ; direct the anxious mind to the Saviour's 
love ; and render himself powerless in the cause 
of truth by imprudent and inconsistent practices. 

"How empty learning, and how vain is art; 
Save when it guides the life, and mends the heart." 

One grain of prudence is of more value than 



PERSEVERANCE. 47 

a cranium crowded with unbridled genius, or a 
flowing stream of vain wit. It is the real ballast 
of human life. Without it, dangers gather quick 
and fast around the frail bark of man, and hurry 
him on to destruction. The shores of time are 
lined with wrecks, driven before the gales of 
Imprudence. — L. C. Judson. 

Is he a prudent man as to his temporal 
estate, who lays designs only for a day, with- 
out any prospect to, or provision for, the re- 
maining part of life ? — Tillqtson. 



fmmmntt. 



VJT7HINE enemy of greatness sings, 
^ Yet pours contempt on little things. 

O brand him with his shame, 
And purge the chambers of thy heart, 
And bid him with his lie depart, 

And all who bear his name. 

Be right, be firm ; be strong of will, 
Which in defeat continues still 

Where daily duties are ; 
Admiring angels soon will bless 
Thee with the sweetness of success, 
And hide thine evil star. 



48 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

All the performances of human art, at which 
we look with praise or wonder, are instances of 
the resistless force of perseverance : it is by this 
that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that 
distant countries are united with canals. If a 
man was to compare the effect of a single stroke 
of the pick-axe, or of one impression of a spade, 
with the general design and last result, he would 
be overwhelmed by the sense of their dispro- 
portion ; yet those petty operations, incessantly 
continued, in time surmount the greatest diffi- 
culties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans 
bounded, by the slender force of human beings. 

It is, therefore of the utmost importance that 
those who have any intention of deviating from 
the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a repu- 
tation superior to names hourly swept away by 
time among the refuse of fame, should add to 
their reason and their spirit, the power of per- 
sisting in their purpose ; acquire the art of sap- 
ping what they cannot batter; and the habit ot 
vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate at- 
tacks. — Dr. Johnson. 

People may tell you of your being unfit for 
some peculiar occupation in life ; but heed them 
not. Whatever employ you follow with perse- 
verance and assiduity will be found fit for you : 
it will be your support in youth and your com- 
fort in age. In learning the useful part of any 
profession, very moderate abilities will suffice — 
great abilities are generally injurious to the pos- 



PERSE VERA NCE. 49 

sessors. Life has been compared to a race ; but 
the allusion still improves by observing that the 
most swift are ever the most apt to stray from 
the course. — Goldsmith. 

That policy that can strike only while the 
iron is hot, will be overcome by that perseve- 
rance which, like Cromwell's, can make the iron 
hot by striking ; and he that can only rule the 
storm must yield to him who can both raise 
and rule it. — Colton. 

Perseverance, working in the right direction, 
grows with time, and when steadily practiced, 
even by the most humble, will rarely fail of its 
reward. Trusting in the help of others is oi 
comparatively little use. When one of Michael 
Angelo's principal patrons died he said, " I be- 
gin to understand that the promises of the world 
are for the most part vain phantoms, and that to 
confide in one's self, and become something of 
worth and value, is the best and safest counsel." 
— Smiles. 

Acting — wrote one of the great ornaments of 
the English stage — does not, like Dogberry's 
reading and writing, " come by nature ; " with 
all the high qualities which go to the formation 
of a great exponent of the book of life (for so 
the stage may justly be called), it is impossible, 
totally impossible, to leap at once to fame. 
11 What wound did ever heal but by slow de- 
grees ? " says our immortal author ; and what 
man, say I, ever became an actor without a long 



50 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

and sedulous apprenticeship ? I know that many 
men think to step from behind a counter or jump 
from the high stool of an office to the boards, 
and take the town by storm in " Richard " or 
" Othello," is " as* easy as lying." O, the born 
idiots ! They remind me of the halfpenny candles 
stuck in the windows on illumination nights ; they 
flicker and flutter their brief minute, and go out 
unheeded. — Kean. 

While yet a youth, says a successful business 
man, in giving his early experience, I entered a 
store one day, and asked if a clerk was not 
wanted. " No ! " in a rough tone, was the an- 
swer, all being too busy to bother with me ; 
when I reflected that if they did not want a clerk 
they might want a laborer, but I was dressed too 
fine for that. I went to my lodgings, put on a 
rough garb, and the next day went into the same 
store and demanded if they did not want a por- 
ter, and again " No, sir," was the response ; when 
I exclaimed, in despair almost, "A laborer? Sir, 
I will work at any wages. Wages is not my ob- 
ject. I must have employ, and I want to be use- 
ful in business." 

These last remarks attracted their attention ; 
and in the end I was hired as a laborer in the 
basement and sub -cellar at a very low pay, 
scarcely enough to keep body and soul together. 

In the basement and sub-cellar I soon at- 
tracted the attention of the counting-house and 
chief clerk. I saved enough for my employers, 



ECONOMY. 51 

in little things usually wasted, to pay my wages 
ten times over, and they soon found it out. I 
did not let anybody about commit petty lar- 
cenies without remonstrance and threats of ex- 
posure, and real exposure if remonstrance would 
not do. I did not ask for any two hours' leave. 
If I was wanted at three in the morning I never 
growled, and told everybody to go home, "and I 
will see everything right." I loaded off at day- 
break packages for the morning boats, or carried 
them myself. In short, I soon became — as I 
meant to be — indispensable to my employers, and 
I rose, and rose, until I became head of the 
house, with money enough for any luxury or any 
position a mercantile man may desire for himself 
and family in a great city. — Anonymous. 



Jkflttotmf* 



Ifj^TOW quietly yon maple lifts 
^^ Its branches to the skies, 
Because it uses all the gifts 
Which Providence supplies ! 

Economy of every gift 

Which God on us bestows 
Produces grace and strength and thrift 

And all that from them grows. 



52 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

It makes each day a stepping-stone 
To mark the sure increase, 

The silent climbing which alone 
Imparts the sense of peace. 

It gives a task to every power, 
Proportioned to its range ; 

And Recreation has her hour, 
And Friendship sweet exchange. 

It does not suffer any waste 
Of substance, time or health, 

Nor ever plunge in headlong haste 
To gain ensnaring wealth ; 

But gathers wholesome property 

For uses manifold, 
Becoming that high alchemy 

Whose wonders are untold. 



Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty. 
and of ease ; and the beauteous sister of temper- 
ance, of cheerfulness, and health; and profuseness 
is a cruel and crafty demon that gradually in- 
volves her followers in dependence and debts ; 
that is, fetters them with irons that enter into 
their souls. — Dr. Johnson. 

It is, indeed, important that the standard ' of 
living in all classes should be high ; that is, it 
should include the comforts of life, the means of 
neatness and order in our dwellings, and such 



ECONOMY. 53 

supplies of our wants as are fitted to secure vig- 
orous health. But how many waste their earn- 
ings on indulgences which may be spared, and 
thus have no resource for a dark day, and are 
always trembling on the brink of pauperism i 
Needless expenses keep many too poor for self- 
improvement. And here let me say, that expen- 
sive habits among the more prosperous laborers 
often interfere with the mental culture of them- 
selves and their families. How many among them 
sacrifice improvement to appetite ! How many 
sacrifice it to the love of show, to the desire of 
outstripping others, and to habits of expense 
which grow out of this insatiable passion ! In a 
country so thriving and luxurious as ours, the 
laborer is in danger of contracting artificial wants 
and diseased tastes; and to gratify these he gives 
himself wholly to accumulation, and sells his mind 
for gain. Our unparalleled prosperity has not 
been an unmixed good. It has inflamed cupidity, 
has diseased the imagination with dreams of 
boundless success, and plunged a vast multitude 
into excessive toils, feverish competitions, and ex- 
hausting cares. A laborer having secured a neat 
home and a wholesome table, should ask nothing 
more for the senses ; but should consecrate his 
leisure, and what may be spared of his earnings 
to the culture of himself and his family, to the 
best books, to the best teaching, to pleasant and 
profitable intercourse, to sympathy and the offices 
of humanity, and to the enjoyment of the beau- 



54 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

tiful in nature and art. Unhappily, the laborer, 
if prosperous, is anxious to ape the rich man, 
instead of trying to rise above him, as he often 
may, by noble acquisitions. The young in par- 
ticular, the apprentice and the female domestic, 
catch a taste for fashion, and on this altar sacri- 
fice too often their uprightness, and almost al- 
ways the spirit of improvement, dooming them- 
selves to ignorance, if not to vice, for a vain 
show. Is this evil without remedy ? Is human 
nature always to be sacrificed to outward decora- 
tion ? Is the outward always to triumph over the 
inward man ? Is nobleness of sentiment never to 
spring up among us ? May not a reform in this 
particular begin in the laboring class, since it 
seems so desperate among the more prosperous? 
Cannot the laborer, whose condition calls him so 
loudly to simplicity of taste and habits, take his 
stand against that love of dress which dissipates 
and corrupts so many minds among the opulent? 
Cannot the laboring class refuse to measure men 
by outward success, and pour utter scorn on all 
pretensions founded on outward show or condi- 
tion? Sure I am that, were they to study plain- 
ness of dress and simplicity of living, for the pur- 
pose of their own true elevation, they would sur- 
pass in intellect, in taste, in honorable qualities, 
and in present enjoyment, that great proportion 
of the prosperous who are softened into indul- 
gences or enslaved to empty show. By such 
self-denial, how might the burden of labor be 



ECONOMY. 55 

lightened, and time and strength redeemed for 
improvement. — Channing. 

Parsimony is not economy. It is separate in 
theory from it ; and in fact it may or may not 
be a part of economy, according to circum- 
stances. Expense, and great expense, may be 
an essential part in true economy. If parsimony 
were to be considered as one of the attributes 
of that virtue, there is, however, another and a 
higher economy. Economy is a distributive vir- 
tue, and consists, not in saving, but in selection. 
Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, 
no powers of combination, no comparison, no 
judgment. Mere instinct, and that not an in- 
stinct of the noblest kind, may produce this false 
economy in perfection. The other economy has 
larger views. It demands a discriminating judg- 
ment, and a firm, sagacious mind. It shuts one 
door to impudent importunity, only to open an- 
other, and a wider, to unpresuming merit. If 
none but meritorious service, or real talent were 
to be rewarded, this nation has not wanted, and 
this nation will not want, the means of reward- 
ing all the service it ever will receive, and en- 
couraging all the merit it ever will produce. No 
state, since the foundation of society, has been 
impoverished by that species of profusion. — 
Burke. 

As not less important than that economy of 
money which is insisted upon so strongly by all 
our moralists, we would recommend an economy 



56 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

of mental power. Many of us waste our resources 
in the early stages of our career, forgetful that 
the race is won by the slaying power of the run- 
ners. Napoleon gained his victories by his judi- 
cious employment of his reserves. The general 
who risks all his forces in a single charge must 
expect and will deserve defeat. It is not the first 
blow that strikes home the nail, and what is to 
be done if we leave ourselves no strength with 
which to strike a second, and a third, or it may 
be a hundredth? . . . 

Read aright, the fable of the tortoise 
and the hare points a moral in this direc- 
tion. The hare was beaten by the tortoise 
because the latter possessed the staying 
faculty. At school and at college we frequently 
see the prizes carried off by the men whom an 
ignorant impatience had criticised as dull, slow, 
and incapable plodders, while the dashing, bril- 
liant fellows, apparently sure of victory without 
an effort, were left hopelessly behind in the race. 
They had no reserve to fall back upon, while the 
former had a latent accumulation of strength on 
which they drew at need, enabling them to meet 
every demand. 

It is hardly necessary to say that we can hold 
no such reserve as that of which we are speak- 
ing unless we submit to the severest self-disci- 
pline. We must be content to wait and watch, 
to husband our powers, to accumulate materials, 
to cultivate habits of rigorous thought and exact 



LABOR AND GREATNESS. 57 

judgment, to conquer hasty impulses, and enforce 
a strict restraint upon our passions. The vigor 
and certainty with which a great painter wields 
his brush and manipulates his colors, until the 
thought in his brain becomes visible to all men 
on the enchanted canvas, have been acquired by 
long and assiduous practice, by the discipline and 
self-command of patient years. And this disci- 
pline and self-command have given him so thor- 
ough a knowledge of his resources that he un- 
dertakes nothing which he cannot execute. — 
Adams. 



^.t. 



Jbforr mh fmlttm. 



,^\NLY through toil and pain and tribulation 
<2> ^ The blessed things of heaven and earth are 

won, 
What time the man grows less in his probation, 
And God is more with each successive sun. 

And shall the dream of life, the quenchless yearn- 
ing 
For something which is yet beyond control, 
The flame within the breast forever burning, 
Not leap to action and exalt the soul ? — 
5 



58 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Surmount all barriers to brave endeavor, 
Make for itself a way where it would go, 

And flash the crown of ecstacy forever, 

Which only laborers with God may know ? 

In action there is joy which is no fiction, 
The hope of something- as in faith begun, 

God's sweet and everlasting benediction, 
The flush of victory and labor done ! 

Labor puts on the livery of greatness 

While genius, idle, withers from the sight, 

And in its triumph takes no note of lateness, 
For time exists not in eternal light. 



Generally speaking, the life of all truly great 
men has been a life of intense and incessant la- 
bor. They have commonly passed the first half 
of life in the gross darkness of indigent humil- 
ity, — overlooked, mistaken, contemned, by weaker 
men, — thinking while others slept, reading while 
others rioted, feeling something within them that 
told them they should not always be kept down 
among the dregs of the world ; and then when 
their time was come, and some little accident has 
given them their first occasion, they have burst 
into the light and glory of public life, rich with 
the spoils of time, and mighty in all the labors 
and struggles of the mind. Then do the multi- 
tude cry out, "A miracle of genius;" yes, he is 



LABOR AND GREATNESS. 59 

a miracle of genius, because he is a miracle of 
labor ; because, instead of trusting to the re- 
sources of his own single mind, he has ransacked 
a thousand minds; because he makes use of the 
accumulated wisdom of ages, and takes as his 
point of departure the very last line and bound- 
ary to which science has advanced ; because it 
has ever been the object of his life to assist 
every intellectual gift of nature, however munifi- 
cent, and however splendid, with every resource 
that art could suggest, and every attention dili- 
gence could bestow. — Sydney Smith. 

There needs all the force that enthusiasm can 
give to enable a man to succeed in any great 
enterprise of life. Without it, the obstruction 
and difficulty he has to encounter on every side 
might compel him to succumb ; but with courage 
and perseverance, inspired by enthusiasm, a man 
feels strong enough to face any danger, or to 
grapple with any difficulty. What an enthusiasm 
was that of Columbus, who, believing in the ex- 
istence of a new world, braved the dangers of 
unknown seas ; and, when those about him de- 
spaired and rose up against him, threatening to 
cast him into the sea, still stood firm upon his 
hope and courage until the great new world at 
length rose upon the horizon! 

The brave man will not be baffled, but tries 
and tries again until he succeeds. The tree does 
not fall at the first stroke, but only by repeated 
strokes and after great labor. We may see the 



60 J DEALS OF LIFE. 

invisible success at which a man has arrived, but 
forget the toil and suffering and peril through 
which it has been achieved. When a friend of 
Marshal Lefevre was complimenting him on his 
possessions and good fortune, the Marshal said : 
" You envy me, do you ? Well, you shall have 
these things at a better bargain than I had. 
Come into the court: I'll fire at you with a gun 
twenty times at thirty paces, and if I don't kill 
you, all shall be your own. What ! you wont ? 
Very well ; recollect, then, that I have been shot 
at more than a thousand times, and much 
nearer, before I arrived at the state in which 
you now find me ! " 

The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which 
the greatest of men had to serve. It is usually 
the best stimulus and discipline of character. It 
often evokes power of action that, but for it, 
would have remained dormant. As comets are 
sometimes revealed by eclipses, so heroes are 
brought to light by sudden calamity. It seems 
as if, in certain cases, genius, like iron struck by 
the flint, needed the sharp and sudden blow of 
adversity to bring out the divine spark. There 
are natures which blossom and ripen amidst 
trials, which would only wither and decay in an 
atmosphere of ease and comfort. 

Thus it is good for men to be roused into 
action and stiffened into self-reliance by diffi- 
culty, rather than to slumber away their lives in 
useless apathy and indolence. If there were no 



LABOR AND GREATNESS. 61 

difficulties, there would be no need of efforts ; if 
there were no temptations, there would be no 
training in self-control, and but little merit in 
virtue ; if there were no trial and suffering-, there 
would be no education in patience and resigna- 
tion. Thus difficulty, adversity and suffering are 
not all evil, but often the best source of strength, 
discipline, and virtue. 

For the same reason, it is often of advantage 
for a man to be under the necessity of having to 
struggle with poverty and conquer it. " He who 
has battled," says Carlyle, " were it only with 
poverty and hard toil, will be found stronger and 
more expert than he who could stay at home from 
the battle, concealed among the provision wagons, 
or even rest unwatchfully ' abiding by the stuff.' " 

Scholars have found poverty tolerable com- 
pared with the privation of intellectual food. 
Riches weigh much more heavily upon the mind. 
" I cannot but choose say to Poverty," said 
Richter, " Be welcome ! so that thou come not 
too late in life." Poverty, Horace tells us, drove 
him to poetry, and poetry introduced him to 
Varus and Virgil and Maecenas. " Obstacles," 
says Michelet, " are great incentives. I lived for 
whole years upon a Virgil, and found myself well 
off. An odd volume of Racine, purchased by 
chance at a stall on the quay, created the poet 
of Toulon." 

The Spaniards are even said to have meanly 
rejoiced in the poverty of Cervantes, but for 



<>2 WEM.s OF LIFE. 

which they supposed the production of his great 
works might have been prevented. When the 
Archbishop of Toledo visited the French Ambas- 
sador at Madrid, the gentlemen in the suite of 
the latter expressed their high admiration of the 
writings of the author of "Don Quixote," and in- 
timated their desire of becoming, acquainted with 
one who had given them so much pleasure. The 
answer they received was, that Cervantes had 
borne arms in the service of his country, and 
was now old and poor. " What ! " exclaimed one 
of the Frenchmen, " is not Senor Cervantes in 
good circumstances ? Why is he not maintained, 
then, out of the public treasury?" "Heaven 
forbid ! " was the reply, "that his necessities should 
be ever relieved, if it is those which make him 
write ; since it is his poverty that makes the 
world rich ! " 

It is not prosperity so much as adversity, not 
wealth so much as poverty, that stimulates the 
perseverance of strong and healthy natures, 
rouses their energy and develops their character. 
Burke said of himself: "I was not rocked and 
swaddled and dandled into a legislator. ' Nitor 
in advcrsuni is the motto for a man like me." 
Some men only require a great difficulty set in 
their way to exhibit the force of their character 
and genius ; and that difficulty, once conquered, 
becomes one of the greatest incentives to their 
further progress. — Smiles. 



FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 63 



Ifmlum mh jSura$$$$ + 



^fjThat though the triumph of thy fond fore- 
' N ^ r casting 

Lingers till earth is fading from thy sight ? 
Thy part with Him whose arms are everlasting, 

Is not forsaken in a hopeless night. 

Paul was not begotten in the death of Stephen ; 

Fruitful through time shall be that precious 
blood : 
No morning yet has ever worn to even 

And missed the glory of its crimson Flood. 

There is a need of all the blood of martyrs, 
Forevermore the eloquence of God ; 

And there is need of him who never barters 
His patience in that desert way the Master 
trod. 

What mean the strange, hard words, "through 
tribulation," 
O Man of Sorrows, only Thou canst tell, 
And such as in Thy life's humiliation, 

Have oft been with Thee, ay, have known 
Thee well. 

The failures of the world are God's successes, 
Although their coming be akin to pain ; 



64 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And frowns of Providence are but caresses, 
Prophetic of the rest sought long in vain. 



It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed 
through success ; they much oftener succeed 
through failure. By far the best experience of 
men is made up of their remembered failures in 
dealing with others in the affairs of life. Such 
failures, in sensible men, incite to better self- 
management, and greater tact and self-control, as 
a means of avoiding them in the future. Ask the 
diplomatist, and he will tell you that he has 
learned his art through beinor baffled, defeated, 
thwarted, and circumvented, far more than from 
having succeeded. Precept, study, advice, and 
example could never have taught them so well 
as failure has done. It has disciplined them ex- 
perimentally, and taught them what to do as well 
as what not to do — which is often still more 
important in diplomacy. 

Many have to make up their minds to en- 
counter failure again and again before they suc- 
ceed ; but if they have pluck, the failure will only 
serve to rouse their courage, and stimulate them 
to renewed efforts. Talma, the greatest of actors, 
was himself hissed off the stage when he ap- 
peared on it. Lacordaire, one of the greatest 
preachers of modern times, only acquired celeb- 
rity after repeated failures. Montalembart said 
of his first public appearance in the Church of St. 



FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 65 

Roch : " He failed completely, and, on coming out, 
everyone said , ' Though he may be a man of tal- 
ent, he will never be a preacher.' " Again and again 
he tried, until he succeeded ; and only two years 
after his debut, Lacordaire was preaching in 
Notre Dame to audiences such as few French 
orators have addressed since the time of Bossuet 
and Massillon. 

When Mr. Cobden first appeared as a speaker, 
at a public meeting in Manchester, he completely 
broke down, and the chairman appologized for 
his failure. Sir James Graham and Mr. Disraeli 
failed and were derided at first, and only suc- 
ceed by dint of great labor and application. At 
one time Sir James Graham had almost given up 
public speaking in despair. He said to his friend 
Sir Francis Baring : " I have tried it in every way 
— extempore, from notes, and committing all to 
memory — and I can't do it. I don't know why it 
is, but I am afraid I shall never succeed." Yet, 
by dint of perseverance, Graham, like Disraeli, 
lived to become one of the most effective and 
impressive of parliamentary speakers. 

Failures in one direction have sometimes had 
the effect of forcing the far-seeing student to ap- 
ply himself in another. Thus Prideaux's failure 
as a candidate for the post of parish-clerk of 
Ugboro, in Devon, led to his applying himself to 
learning, and to his eventual elevation to the 
bishopric of Worcester. When Boileau, educated 
for the bar, pleaded his first cause, he broke 



66 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

down amidst shouts of laughter. He next tried 
the pulpit, and failed there too. And then he 
tried poetry, and succeeded. Fontenelle and Vol- 
taire both failed at the bar. So Cowper, though 
his diffidence and shyness, broke down when 
pleading his first cause, though he lived to re- 
vive the poetic art in England. Montesquieu and 
Bentham both failed as lawyers, and forsook the 
bar for more congenial pursuits — the latter leav- 
ing behind him a treasury of legislative proceed- 
ure for all time. Goldsmith failed in passing as 
a surgeon ; but he wrote the " Deserted Village " 
and the "Vicar of Wakefield;" while Addison 
failed as a speaker, but succeeded in writing 
" Sir Roger de Coverley," and his many famous 
papers in the " Spectator." 

Even the privation of some important bodily 
sense, such as sight or hearing, has not been suf- 
ficient to deter corageous men from zealously 
pursuing the struggle of life. Milton, when 
struck by blindness, " still bore up and steered 
right onward." His greatest works were pro- 
duced during that period of his life in which he 
suffered most — when he was poor, sick, old, blind, 
slandered, and persecuted. 

The lives of some of the greatest men have 
been a continuous struggle with difficulty and ap- 
parent defeat. Dante produced his greatest work 
in penury and exile. Banished from his native 
city by the local faction to which he was opposed, 
his house was given up to plunder, and he was 






FAILURES AND SUCCESSES. 67 

sentenced, in his absence, to be burned alive. 
When informed by a friend that he might return 
to Florence, if he would ask for pardon and ab- 
solution, he replied : " No ! This is not the way 
that shall lead me back to my country. I will re- 
turn with hasty steps if you, or any other, can 
open to me a way that shall not derogate from 
the fame or honor of Dante ; but if by no such 
way Florence can be entered, then to Florence I 
shall never return." His enemies remaining im- 
placable, Dante, after a banishment of twenty 
years, died in exile. They even pursued him 
after death, when his book, " De Monarchia," was 
publicly burned at Bologna, by order of the Papal 
Legate. 

Camoens also wrote his great poems mostly in 
banishment. Tired of solitude at Santarem, he 
joined an expedition against the Moors, in which 
he distinguished himself by his bravery. He lost 
an eye when boarding an enemy's ship in a sea- 
fight. At Goa, in the East Indies, he witnessed 
with indignation the cruelty practised by the Por- 
tugese on the natives, and expostulated with the 
governor against it. He was in consequence ban- 
ished from the settlement, and sent to China. In 
the course of his subsequent adventures and mis- 
fortunes Camoens suffered shipwreck, escaping 
only with his life and the manuscript of his 
" Lusiad." Persecution and hardship seemed 
everywhere to pursue him. At Macao he was 
thrown into prison. Escaping from it, he set sail 



68 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

for Lisbon, where he arrived, after sixteen years' 
absence, poor and friendless. His " Lusiad," which 
was shortly after published, brought him much 
fame, but no money. But for his old Indian 
slave Antonio, who begged for his master in the 
streets, Camoens must have perished. As it was, 
he died in a public alms-house, worn out by dis- 
ease and hardship. An inscription was placed 
over his grave : " Here lies Luis de Camoens : he 
excelled all the poets of his time : he lived poor 
and miserable ; and he died so, mdlxxix." 
This record, disgraceful but truthful, has since 
been removed ; and a lying and pompous epi- 
taph, in honor of the great national poet of Por- 
tugal, substituted in its stead. 

Even Michael Angelo was exposed, during the 
greater part of his life, to the persecutions of the 
envious — vulgar nobles, vulgar priests, and sor- 
did men of every degree, who could neither sym- 
pathize with him nor comprehend his genius. 
When Paul IV. condemned some of his work 
in " The Last Judgment," the artist observed 
that " The Pope would do better to occupy him- 
self with correcting the disorders and indecencies 
which disgrace the world than with any such 
hypercriticisms upon his art." 

Tasso, also, was the victim of almost contin- 
ual persecutions and calumny. After lying in a 
mad-house for seven years, he became a wan- 
derer over Italy ; and when on his death-bed he 
wrote : " I will not complain of the malignity of 



PEA YER. 69 

fortune, because I do not choose to speak of the 
ingratitude of men who have succeeded in draw- 
ing me to the tomb of a mendicant." 

But time brings about strange revenges. The 
persecutors and the persecuted often change 
places ; it is the latter who are great — the former 
who are infamous. Even the name of the per- 
secutors would probably long ago have been 
forgotten, but for their connection with the his- 
tory of the men whom they have persecuted. — 
Smiles. 



JVntpr< 



GRAYER is the better sacrifice than whole 
w Burnt offerings, to stay the lifted rod, 
Up-flaming from the altar of a soul 
Returning to the royalty of God. 

Prayer is the manly cry for sympathy 

To One who made the Father's will His own, 

That something of His wondrous alchemy 

May in our weak, disordered lives be shown. 

Prayer is the herald of outgoing love, 

Which in the wilderness prepares the way, 



70 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Till on the wings of the swift-flying dove 
Come back the tidings of the better day. 

Prayer is the mighty spirit of our work, 

Which wins the smile of God, and fills the 
heart 

Until there is no room for self to lurk, 

And all the doubts and fears of life depart. 



Prayer is an acknowledgment of our depend- 
ence upon God ; which dependence could have 
no firm foundation without unchangeableness. 
Prayer doth not desire any change in God, but 
is offered to God that He would confer those 
things which He has immutably willed to com- 
municate; but He willed them not without prayer 
as the means of bestowing them. The light of 
the sun is ordered for our comfort, for the dis- 
covery of visible things, for the ripening of the 
fruits of the earth ; but, withal, it is required that 
we use our faculty of seeing, that we employ our 
industry in sowing and planting, and expose our 
fruits to the view of the sun, that they may re- 
ceive the influence of it. If a man shuts his 
eyes, and complains that the sun is changed into 
darkness, it would be ridiculous ; the sun is not 
changed, but we alter ourselves ; nor is God 
changed in not giving us the blessings He hath 
promised, because He hath promised in the way 
of a due address to Him, and opening our souls 
to receive His influence, and to this His immu- 



PRAYER. 71 

tability is the greatest encouragement. — Char- 
nock. 

Perhaps nothing on the subject of prayer has 
ever been uttered wiser than the following speech 
in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The 
speaker was in his 82a! year: — 

In the beginning of the contest with Britain, 
when we were sensible of danger, we had daily 
prayers in this room for the Divine protection. 
Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were gra- 
ciously answered. All of us who were engaged 
in the struggle must have observed frequent in- 
stances of a superintending Providence in our 
favor. To that kind Providence we owe this 
happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the 
means of establishing our future national felicity. 
And have we now forgotten this powerful 
Friend ? or do we imagine we no longer need 
His assistance ? I have lived for a long time ; 
and the longer I live the more convincing proofs 
1 see of this truth, that God governs in the 
affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to 
the ground without His notice, is it probable that 
an empire can rise without His aid ? We have 
been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 
" Except the Lord build the house, they labor in 
vain that build it." I firmly believe this ; and I 
also believe that without His concurring aid we 
shall proceed in this political building no better 
than the builders of Babel : we shall be divided 
by our little, partial, local interests ; our prospects 



72 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

will be confounded ; and we ourselves shall be- 
come a reproach and a by-word down to future 
ages. And what is worse, mankind may here- 
after, from this unfortunate instance, despair of 
establishing government by human wisdom, and 
leave it to chance, war, or conquest. I therefore 
beg leave to move that henceforth prayers, im- 
ploring the assistance of Heaven and its bless- 
ing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly 
every morning before we proceed to business ; 
and that one or more of the clergy of this city 
be requested to officiate in that service. — Dr. 
Franklin. 

We are not to pray that all things may go 
on as we would have them, but as most con- 
ducing to the good of the world; and we are 
not in our prayers to obey our wills, but pru- 
dence — Montaigne. 

Many times that which we ask would if it 
should be granted be worse for us, and perhaps 
tend to our destruction ; and then God by deny- 
ing the particular matter of our prayers doth 
grant the general matter of them. — Hammond. 

Pray for others in such forms, with such 
length, importunity, and earnestness, as you use 
for yourself; and you will find all little, ill-na- 
tured passions die away, your heart grow great 
and generous, delighting in the common happi- 
ness of others, as you used only to delight in 
your own. — Law. 

Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness 



PRAYER. 73 

of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the 
seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the 
calm of our tempest : prayer is the issue of a 
quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts ; it is the 
daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness. 
— Jeremy Taylor. 

Prayer opens the understanding to the bright- 
ness of Divine light, and the will to the warmth 
of heavenly love; nothing can so effectually purify 
the mind from its many ignorances, or the will 
from its perverse affections. It is as a healing 
water which causes the roots of our good desires 
to send forth fresh shoots, which washes away 
the soul's imperfections, and allays the thirst of 
passion — St. Francis de Sales. 

No one will refuse to identify holiness with 
prayer. To say a man is religious is to say the 
same thing as to say he prays. For what is 
prayer? To connect every thought with the 
thought of God ; to look on everything as His 
will and His appointment ; to submit every 
thought, wish, and resolve to Him ; to feel His 
presence so that it shall restrain us even in our 
wildest joy. That is prayer. And what we are 
now, surely we are by prayer. If we have at- 
tained any measure of goodness, if we have re- 
sisted temptation, if we have any self-command, 
or if we live with aspirations and desires be- 
yond the common, we shall not hesitate to as- 
cribe them to prayer. — F. W. Robertson. 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



%}\\\\ 



The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.- 

Heurews XI. I. 

/T^AITH is repose in Providence, 
<"~*r Whose ways we cannot tell, 
Divine, resistless evidence 
Of things invisible. 

Faith is consent that God is God 

In living unto Him, 
With strong assurance girt and shod, 

Although our eyes are dim. 

Faith is the voice of hung-erinpfs 

That to che soul belong, 
Unerring sense of living things 

To breathe in prayer and song. 

Faith is the light of daily toil 

To make it p-low and shine, 
God's animating wine and oil 

Our hearts pronounce divine. 



Faith addresses itself to man's whole being, — 
it sounds every depth ; it touches every spring; it 
calls back the soul from its weary search within 
itself, full of doubt and contradiction ; it presents 
it with an object, implicit, absolute, greater than 



FAITH. 75 

itself, — "One that knoweth all things." It pro- 
vides for every affection, every want and aspira- 
tion. Faith stretches itself over Humanity as the 
prophet stretched himself above the child, — eye to 
eye, mouth to mouth, heart to heart; and to work 
a kindred miracle, to bring back life to the dead, by 
restoring the One to the One, — the whole nature of 
Man to the whole nature of God. — Miss Green- 
well. 

Faith says many things concerning which the 
senses are silent; but nothing which the senses 
deny : it is always above them, but never contrary 
to them. — Pascal. 

Never yet did there exist a full faith in the 
Divine Word (by whom light as well as immor- 
tality was brought into the world) which did not 
expand the intellect, while it purified the heart, — 
which did not multiply the aims and objects of the 
understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of 
the desires and passions. — Coleridge. 

" We live by faith," says the philosophic apostle ; 
but faith without principles (on which to ground our 
faith and our hope) is but a flattering phrase for wil- 
ful positiveness or fanatical bodily sensations. , Well, 
and with good right, therefore, do we maintain (and 
with more zeal than we should defend body or estate) 
a deep and inward conviction, which is as a moon to 
us ; and like the moon, with all its massy and decep- 
tive gleams, it yet lights us on our way (poor trav- 
ellers as we are, and benighted pilgrims). With all 
its spots and changes and temporary eclipses — with 



76 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

all its vain haloes and bedimming vapors — it yet 
reflects the light that is to rise upon us, which even 
now is rising, though intercepted from our imme- 
diate view by the mountains that enclose and frown 
over the whole of our mortal life. — Coleridge. 

Faith is Light transforming Chaos into Order — 
Conviction passing into Conduct. The author of 
"Sartor Resartus " presents this idea in his own 
inimitable way, in the following passage : — 

It is with man's Soul as it was with Nature : 
the beginning of creation is — Light. Till the eye 
have vision the whole members are in bonds. Di- 
vine moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as 
once over the wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken : 
Let there be Light ! Ever to the greatest that has 
felt such moment, it is not miraculous and God-an- 
nouncing ; even as, under simpler figures, to the 
simplest and least. The mad primeval Discord is 
hushed; the rudely-jumbled, conflicting elements 
bind themselves into separate Firmaments : deep, 
silent, rock-foundations are built beneath ; and the 
skyey vault, with its everlasting Luminaries above : 
instead of a dark, wasteful Chaos, we have a bloom- 
ing, fertile, heaven-encompassed World. 

I, too, could now say to myself: Be no longer a 
Chaos, but a World, Or even Worldkin. Produce ! 
Produce ! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal 
fraction of a product, produce it, in God's name ! 
'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then. 
Up, up ! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
with thy whole might. Work while it is called To- 



hope. 77 

day ; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can 
work. — Carlyle. 

Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 
Yea, a man may say. Thou hast faith, and I have 
works : shew me thy faith without thy works, and I 
will shew thee my faith by my works. — St. James 
II. 17-18. 



IfflpL 



M PRESENCE on the mountain 



J? 

^"^ Which beckons up the mighty slope 
To her perennial fountain. 

A mighty power above us, 

Which gives us strength with foes to cope, 
And win new friends to love us. 

An ever brave forerunner, 

Far swifter than the antelope, — 
Nay, light cannot outrun her. 

A star the night adorning, 

That doth the midnight portals ope 
And bid the soul Good-morning. 



78 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

A bright, immortal glory, 

Whose pilgrims past the sunset grope 
To verify her story. 

Our actual enjoyments are so few and transient 
that man would be a very miserable being were he 
not endowed with this passion, which gives him a 
taste of those good things that may possibly come 
into his possession. " We should hope for every- 
thing that is good," says the old poet Linus, " be- 
cause there is nothing which may not be hoped for, 
and nothing but what the gods are able to give us." 
Hope quickens all the still parts of life, and keeps 
the mind awake in her most remiss and indolent 
hours. It gives habitual serenity and good humor. 
It is a kind of vital heat in the soul, that cheers and 
gladdens her, when she does not attend to it. It 
makes pain easy, and labor pleasant. — Addison. 

Hope is the principle of activity ; without holding 
out hope, to desire one to advance is absurd and 
senseless. Suppose, without a sou in my hand, one 
were to say, " Exert yourself: for there is no hope," 
— it would be to turn me into ridicule, and not to 
advise me. To hold out to me the hopelessness of 
my condition never was a reason for exertion ; for 
when, ultimately, equal evils attend upon exertion 
and rest, rest has clearly the preference. — Burke. 

Hope is necessary in every condition. The mis- 
eries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, 
without this comfort, be insupportable ; nor does it 
appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence 



HOPE. 79 

can set us above the want of this general blessing; 
or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune 
are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, 
were it not elevated and delighted by the expecta- 
tion of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet 
behind by which the wish shall be at last satisfied, 
and the heart filled up to its utmost extent. 

Hope is, indeed, very fallacious, and promises 
what it seldom gives; but its promises are more 
valuable than the gifts of fortune, and it seldom 
frustrates us without assuring us of recompensing 
the delay by a greater bounty. — Dr. Johnson. 

Hope throws a generous contempt upon ill- 
usage, and looks like a handsome defiance of a 
misfortune; as who should say, You are somewhat 
troublesome now, but I shall conquer you. — Jeremy 
Collier. 

Used with due abstinence, hope acts as a health- 
ful tonic ; intemperately indulged, as an enervating 
opiate. The visions of future triumph which at first 
animate exertion, if dwelt upon too intensely, will 
usurp the place of the stern reality; and noble ob- 
jects will be contemplated, not for their own inher- 
ent worth, but on account of the day-dreams they 
engender. Thus hope, aided by imagination, makes 
one man a hero, another a somnambulist, and a third 
a lunatic ; while it renders them all enthusiasts. — 
Sir J. Stephen. 

A religious life is which most abounds in well- 
grounded hope, and such an one as is fixed on ob- 
jects that are capable of making us entirely happy. 



SO IDEALS OF LIFE. 

This hope in a religious man is much more sure and 
certain than the hope of any temporal blessing, as it 
is strengthened not only by reason, but by faith. It 
has at the same time its eye perpetually fixed on 
that state, which implies in the very notion of it the 
most full and most complete happiness. 
Religious hope has likewise, this advantage above 
any other kind of hope, that it is able to revive the 
dying man, and to fill his mind not only with secret 
comfort and refreshment, but sometimes with rap- 
ture and transport. He triumphs in his agonies, 
whilst the soul springs forward with delight to the 
great object which she has always had in view, and 
leaves the body with an expectation of being re- 
united to her in a glorious and joyful resurrection. 
— Addison. 



SipHtf. 



And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but the greatest ol 
these is charity. — I Cor. XIII. 13. 

H^IVINE Elixer flows from Heaven 
< ^ To make our manhood pure and strong: 
To all who love this wine is given 
Transmuting life to prayer and song. 



CHARITY. 81 

And in the sweet transfiguration 

The joy, the joy alone abides : 
The shining stairs of Tribulation 

Go winding up where God resides. 

O, Christ, divinest fairest Lover, 

Since Thou hast smitten me with love, 

I must tell out what I discover, — 
This dear Elixer from above. 

It is the honey of Existence, 

The sweetness of a virgin bride, 
The nectar of divine subsistence, 

The beauty that must needs abide. 

And when, like rain or sunshine vernal, 

It comes with virtue in its train, 
The pure, sweet breath of the Eternal, 

Which maketh all things live again, — 

A blessed sense of liberation 

Goes prancing all my being through ; 

And the invisible creation 
Majestically comes to view. 

I gaze upon the world around me, 

Beholding that which is divine ; 
All beauteous things which here surrounc me, 

They speak to me, and they are mine. 

I see in every man a brother, 
Whose life, like mine, is infinite, 



82 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

All interlocked with one another, 
Companions struggling to the light. 

I look beyond the shining portals, 

And strength comes back for life on earth 

I feel the glory of immortals 

Transfigure me with kindred worth. 

Henceforth all joys are antedated 
Along my pathway here below : 

I know I am to God related, 

And that is joy of joys to know. 

And Charity has surely founded 

Her peaceful dwelling in my breast, 

And I shall never be confounded, 

Partaking her eternal rest. . 



The earth does not gladden more when the 
morning sun flashes his light on her bosom, than 
does the soul rejoice when the light of the heavenly 
Sun first touches it, and it passes out of darkness 
into warm, bright day. Circumstances are nothing. 
" I have found Him whom my soul loveth " is the 
cry ; and nothing can kill, nothing can even dash, 
the joy which that consciousness quickens within. 
— J. Baldwin Brown. 

The raptures of love are of little value, if they 
end with the bosom in which they begin. Genuine 
love is active benevolence or charity. . 

Charity, taken in its largest extent, is nothing 



CHARITY. 83 

else but the sincere love of God and our neighbor. 
— Wake. 

Charity is more extensive than either of the two 
other graces, which centre ultimately in ourselves : 
for we believe and we hope for our own sakes ; but 
love, which is a more disinterested principle, carries 
us out of ourselves into desires, and endeavors of 
promoting the interests of other beings. — Atter- 

BURY. 

Charity is made the constant companion and 
perfection of all virtues ; and well it is for that 
virtue where it most enters and longest stays — 
Sprat. 

Charity is universal duty, which it is in every 
man's power sometimes to practice ; since every 
degree of assistance given to another, upon proper 
motives, is an act of charity ; and there is scarcely 
any man in such a state of imbecility as that he may 
not, on some occasions, benefit his neighbor. He 
that cannot relieve the poor may instruct the ignor- 
ant ; and he that cannot attend the sick may reclaim 
the vicious. He that can give little assistance him- 
self may yet perform the duty of charity by influ- 
encing the ardor of others, and recommending the 
petitions which he cannot grant to those who have 
more to bestow. The widow that shall give her 
mite to the treasury, the poor man who shall bring 
to the thirsty a cup of cold water, shall not lose 
their reward. — Dr. Johnson. 

That charity alone endures which flows from a 
sense of duty and a hope in God. This is the char- 



84 WEALS OF LIFE. 

ity that treads in secret those paths of misery frcm 
which all but the lowest of human wretches have 
fled : this is that charity which no labor can weary, 
no ingratitude detach, no horror disgust ; that toils, 
that pardons, that suffers ; that is seen by no man, 
and honored by no man, but, like the great laws of 
nature, does the work of God in silence, and looks 
to a future and better world for its reward. — Syd- 
ney Smith. 

Every good act is charity. Giving water to the 
thirsty is charity ; removing stones and thorns from 
the road is charity ; smiling in your brother's face is 
charity. A man's true wealth is the good he does 
in this world. When he dies, mortals will ask what 
property he left behind him ; but angels will ask 
him, What good deeds hast thou sent before thee ? 
— Mohammed. 

A poor man, with a single handful of flowers, 
heaped the alms-bowl of Buddha, which the rich 
could not fill with ten thousand bushels. — From the 
Chinese. 

The liberal man who eats and bestows is better 
than the pious man who fasts and hoards. — From 
the Persian. 

Give, if thou canst, an alms ; if not, afford instead 
of that a sweet and gentle word. — Robert Herrick. 

Love or charity is life — the life lived and taught 
by One " Who left us an example that we should 
follow His steps." . 



THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 



>fp J)jj£ nf ft&grtmti 



TORE ye with the preparation 
C-J^. of the Gospel shod, 
Fear ye not the tribulation 

Of the day of God ! 
He will come in all the glory 

Of a smiling face, 
And rehearse the happy story 

Of the day of grace. 

Are ye with no preparation 

Of the Gospel shod, 
Then, alas ! the tribulation 

Of the day of God! 
He will come, but in the glory 

Of a clouded face, 
And recall the mournful story 

Of His wasted grace. — 



85 



"There is a Spirit in man," faithful to its in- 
stincts, even when astray as to their true object ; it 
wanders often, yet feels through very sadness and 
weariness how far it has got from home. And 
hence come those utterances (of which you tell me), 
strange, prophetic voices, a groaning and travail- 
pain of Humanity, which, even in the hearts of those 
who reject revelation, testify its waiting for some 
great Redemption. If man refused the bread which 



86 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

came down from Heaven, never was it so hard for 
him to live "by bread alone" as now. His very 
wealth and increase has brought with it a sense of 
poverty, — because he has become rich, and increased 
in goods, he knows, as he did not before, that he is 
wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. The 
energy of his wrestling with the things of time and 
sense has awakened instincts of which, but for the 
ardor of that struggle, he might have known little. 
He conquers kingdoms, and weeps like the ancient 
conqueror. The world which he has vanquished 
cannot satisfy him. He feels himself to be greater 
than the universe, yet feebler than the meanest 
thing within it which can follow the appointed law 
of its being. The splendor of his material acquisi- 
tions is but a robe, too short and thin to wrap him 
from cold and shame. He can do great things, but 
what is he? To have all, and to die saying, "Is 
this all?" is the epitaph of many a rich and wasted 
life. — Miss Greenwell. 

Methinks neither the voice of the archangel, nor 
the trump of God, nor the dissolution of the ele- 
ments, nor the face of the Judge itself, from which 
the heavens will flee away, will be so dismaying and 
terrible to these men as the sight of the poor mem- 
bers of Christ ; whom, having spurned and rejected 
in the days of their humiliation, they will then be- 
hold with amazement united to their Lord, covered 
with His glory, and seated on His throne. How will 
they be astonished to see them surrounded with so 
much majesty ! How will they cast down their eyes 



TEE DAY OF JUDGMENT. 87 

in their presence ! How will they curse that gold 
which will then eat their flesh as with fire, and that 
avarice, that indolence, that voluptuousness which 
will entitle them to so much misery ! You will then 
learn that the imitation of Christ is the only wisdom: 
you will then be convinced it is better to be en- 
deared to the cottage than admired in the palace ; 
when to have wiped the tears of the afflicted, and 
•inherited the prayers of the widow and the father- 
less, shall be found a richer patrimony than the fa- 
vor of princes. — Robert Hall. 

How can we think of appearing at that tribunal 
without being able to give a ready answer to the 
questions which He shall then put to us about the 
poor and the afflicted, the hungry and the naked, 
the sick and the imprisoned ? — Atterbury. 

All the precepts, promises, and threatenings of 
the gospel will rise up in judgment against us; and 
the articles of our faith will be so many articles of 
accusation: and the great weight of our charge will 
be this, that we did not obey the gospel, which we 
professed to believe; that we made confession of the 
Christian faith, but lived like heathens. — Tillotson. 

As the Supreme Being is the only proper judge 
of our perfections, so He is the only fit rewarder of 
them. This is a consideration that comes home to 
our interest, as the other adapts itself to our ambi- 
tion. And what could the most aspiring or the 
most selfish man desire more, were he to form the 
notion of a being to whom he would recommend 
himself, than such a knowledge as can discover the 



88 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

least appearance of perfection in him, and such a 
goodness as will proportion a reward to it? 

Let the ambitious man, therefore, turn all his 
desire of fame this way; and, that he may propose 
to himself a fame worthy of his ambition, let him 
consider, that if he employs his abilities to the best 
advantage, the time will come when the Supreme 
Governor of the world, the Great Judge of man- 
kind, who sees every degree of perfection in others, 
and possesses all possible perfection in Himself, 
shall proclaim his worth before men and angels, 
and pronounce to him, in the presence of the whole 
creation, that best and most significant of applauses, 
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter 
thou into thy Master's joy. — Addison. 



'■¥• 



Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. — I. John v. 4. 

O keep me innocent ! make others great. — Queen Caroline Ma- 
tilda, of Denmark. 

A handful of good life is better than a bushel of learning. 

— George Herbert. 

The voice of God himself speaks in the hearts of men, whether they 
understand it or not. — South. 

Whatever people think of you, do that which you believe to be right. 

— Pythagoras. 

A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form. — Emerson. 

He lives long that lives well ; and time mis-spent is not lived, but 
lost. — Thomas Fuller. 

A man must not so much prepare himself for eternity as plant eter- 
nity in himself— RlCHTER. 



(00) 



§A 



fjgTERNAL Providence: 

* 5= ^ Throughout His Infinite Abode 

The Whither and the Whence. 

The Virtue of the world: 

Life, Life above, below the sod, 
In mystery impearled. 

Eternity and Time 

Rolled up together at His nod 
Within the soul sublime. 

The Strength that is so still, 

The Glory on the heavenly road 
Which doth all creatures fill. 

One always sacrificed: 

Forever Love with Justice shod, 
Forevermore the Christ. 



While earthly objects are exhausted by famili- 
arity, the thought of God becomes to the devout 
man continually brighter, richer, vaster ; derives 

(91) 



92 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

fresh lustre from all that he observes of nature 
and Providence, and attracts to itself all the 
glories of the universe. The devout man, espe- 
cially in moments of strong- religious sensibility, 
feels distinctly that he has found the true happi- 
ness of man. He has found a Being for his ven- 
eration and love, whose character is inexhaustible, 
who after ages shall have passed will still be un- 
comprehended in the extent of His perfections, 
and will still communicate to the pure mind 
stronger proofs of His excellence and more in- 
timate signs of His approval. — Channing. 

His eye is upon every hour of my existence. 
His spirit is intimately present with every 
thought of my heart. His inspiration gives birth 
to every purpose within me. His hand impresses 
a direction on every footstep of my goings. 
Every breath I inhale is drawn by an energy 
which God deals out to me. — Dr. Chalmers. 

God is a perpetual refuge and security to His 
people. His providence is not confined to one 
generation ; it is not only one age that tastes of 
His bounty and compassion. His eye never yet 
slept, nor hath He suffered the little ship of His 
church to be swallowed up, though it hath been 
tossed upon the waves ; He hath always been a 
haven to preserve us, a house to secure us ; He 
hath always had compassion to pity us, and 
power to protect us ; He hath had a face to 
shine, when the world hath had an angry coun- 
tenance to frown. He brought Enoch home by 



GOD. 93 

an extraordinary translation from a brutish world; 
and when He was resolved to reckon with men 
for their brutish lives, He lodged Noah, the phce- 
nix of the world, in an ark, and kept him alive 
as a spark in the midst of many waters, whereby 
to rekindle a church in the world; in all genera- 
tions He is a dwelling-place to secure His people 
here or entertain them above. — Charnock. 

It is a singular piece of wisdom to apprehend 
truly, and without passion, the works of God, and 
so well to distinguish His justice from His mercy 
as not to miscall those noble attributes ; yet it is 
likewise an honest piece of logic, so to dispute 
and argue the proceedings of God as to dis- 
tinguish even His judgments into mercies. For 
God is merciful unto all, because better to the 
worst than the best deserve ; and to say He 
punisheth none in this world, though it be a 
paradox, is no absurdity. — Sir Thomas Browne. 

Unto them that love Him, God causeth all 
things to work for the best. So that with Him, 
by the heavenly light of steadfast faith, they see 
life even in death ; with Him, even in heaviness 
and sorrow, they fail not of joy and comfort; 
with Him, even in poverty, affliction, and trouble, 
they neither perish nor are forsaken. — Bishop 

COVERDALE. 

May I be one of the weakest, provided only 
in my weakness, that immortal and better vigor 
be put forth with greater effect; provided only, 
in my darkness, the light of the Divine counte- 



94 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

nance does but the more brightly shine : for 
then I shall at once be the weakest and the 
most mighty, — shall be at once blind and of the 
most piercing sight. — Milton. 



DP mmw w$tt* 



The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is the Lord fror 
heaven. —I Cor. XV. 47. 

Sjfj^OD is God all world before, 
^^ Fulness of Eternal Love : 
God is Man forevermore, 
All created things above. 

Incarnation known at last 

Earth's divinest dream fulfils: 
Into Man forever passed, 

God achieves there what He wills ; 

Builds again at wondrous cost, 
Cost which Earth cannot compute, 

And restores the Image lost 

Through the death-concealing fruit; 

Fashions in our earthy shrine 
All His beauty, all His grace, 



THE SECOND MAN 95 

Which eternally will shine 
In this lowly, narrow place ; 

And uplifts for evermore 

What was prostrate in the dust, 

Breathing to the very core 
Sweet divinity of Trust. 

O my Soul, in wonder bow ! 

Heart of mine, in awe retreat! 
God abideth with thee now, 

Strength divine and weakness meet. 

Truth and Immortality 

Are the gifts He bringeth thee ; 
Take them with humility, 

Keep them beautiful and free ; 

Wondrous germs of wondrous life 

In this earthly house of thine, 
Mighty seed of mighty strife 

Till the victory divine. 

Hast thou pain and travail now 
Though thy face is to the van ? 

With His sign upon thy brow, 
Prophesy the Second Man : 

Who, in thee the hope of glory, 

Crowned with sorrow, strong and brave, 

Chants the One Heroic Story, 
Epic of both sides the grave. 



96 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Hast though tribulation yet? 

Fear, which thou canst not recount, 
Lest to Love thou be in debt 

In the day of thine account ? 

God is greater than thy heart, 
And thy measure is not His: 

Thou in Him forever art, 
Infinite His goodness is. 

Hast thou eyes too dim to see 

In this tragedy below 
All that must forever be, 

All that will to-morrow go? 

In the marvellous To-day 

Walk in thine Eternal Light ; 

Heaven and Earth shall pass away, 
Thou remainest in thy right, — 

Heir of God and Liberty, 
And possessor even here, 

In thy life Eternity 

Making Christ forever clear : 

Who, for thy deliverance 

From the power of Death and Hell, 
Bids thee trust Him and advance, 

Hailing Him Immanuel : 

Liberator of the race 
And Ideal of the soul, 



THE SECOND MAN. 97 



Building into living grace 

Image of the One and Whole. 

Lord and God all world before, 
All created things above, 

Man Divine forevermore, 
Fulness of Eternal Love. 



And thus Christianity is the poetry of life ; 
the singing of songs to heavy hearts. "True 
poetry,'' says M. Jouffroy, "has but one theme — 
that of the yearning of the human Soul in the 
presence of the question of its destiny." And 
such a theme pervades the Epic of Redemption ; 
to such yearnings it addresses itself ; by such 
yearnings alone can it be understood, embraced, 
and applied; for such yearnings it supplies the 
consolation of the Heavenly Father. The whole 
scheme of the Gospel is a drama of Redemp- 
tion from darkness to light, from death to life. 
It is the poem of Paradise regained. And Jesus 
is the maker of this poem ; the Hero of this 
drama, through all its action, its vicissitudes, its 
catastrophe, to its final consumation. So various 
is the work of this Redeemer that the Scrip- 
ture writers exhaust the most copious imagery 
to illustrate all its bearings and results. His 
coming into the world for this end, they liken 
to the self-sacrifice of a self-denying benefactor 
beggaring himself to enrich the. destitute ; of a 
prince descending from his father's splendor to 



98 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

do service for the meanest of his subjects, even 
to humiliation and death. His presence in the 
world, they compare to the sun in heaven, shed- 
ding over all men light and life. His office in 
the world is likened to a sower sowing seed ; 
to a fisherman casting his net into the sea ; to 
a physician going where there is disease. His 
teachings are compared to the indispensable bread 
of life ; to the manna which fell from heaven ; 
to the streams which flowed from the stricken 
rock. His death is likened to the self-sacrifice 
of a faithful shepherd who rescues his flock at 
the price of his own life ; to the lifting up of 
the serpent in the wilderness for the healing of 
poisoned sinners ; to the ransom or redemption 
price by which slaves are bought out of bond- 
age ; to the Paschal lamb which warded off the 
Angel of death ; to the triumph of a conqueror 
of mighty foes ; to the work of a surety cancel- 
ling the demands of an antiquated covenant, and 
of a mediator ratifying a new and better one ; 
to the atoning sacrifice which lifted up the penalty 
from the transgressors of the Mosaic law ; and to 
the substituted victim which, clearing off all charges 
against us, makes us feel at one with God. His 
functions are likened to that of a peace-maker, 
doing away with all differences between God and 
men, and therewith between the several divisions 
of God's family ; of the prophets, who proclaimed 
God's words ; of the kings, who maintained God's 
truth ; the priests, who made intercession for 



THE SECOND MAN. 90 

God's people ; the high priest, who penetrated to 
God's presence-chamber with propitiations and 
came back thence with benedictions. And the 
total restilt of His interposition is compared to 
that of an intervening friend who brings together 
a disorganized and scattered family, and reunites 
them with perfect amity with their father's rule. 
For this was " the good pleasure which God pur- 
posed in Himself, to gather back into one body 
under one head the whole family in heaven and 
earth." — Griffeth. 

Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, 
which to relate, were not a history, but a piece of 
poetry, and would sound to common ears like a 
fable : for the world, I count it not an inn, but an 
hospital ; and a place not to live, but to die in. 
The world that I regard is myself; it is the mi- 
crocosom of mine own frame that I cast mine eye 
on ; for the other, I use it but like my globe, and 
turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men 
that look on my outside, perusing only my condi- 
tion and fortune, do err in my altitude ; for I am 
above Atlas his shoulders. The Earth is a point 
not only in respect to the heavens above us, but 
of that heavenly and celestial part within us : 
that mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not 
my mind : that surface that tells the heavens it 
hath an end, cannot persuade me that I have any ; 
I take my circle to above three hundred and 
sixty ; though the number of the arc do measure 
my body, it comprehendeth not my mind : whilst I 



100 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

study to find how I am a microcosm, or a little 
world, I find myself more than the great. There is 
surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was 
before the elements, and owes no homage to the 
sun. Nature tells me that I am the image of 
God, as well as Scripture : he that understands 
not thus much, hath not his introduction or first 
lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man. 
— Sir Thomas Browne. 



amumwii 



% God, 



^^^ Since I have trod 
The way of love and duty, 

Thy miracle 

Immanuel 
Has blossomed into beauty. 

Before, 

I conned it o'er 
And found no revelation: 

To me it seemed 

As if men dreamed, 
Who called it consolation. 



IMMANUEL. 101 

But now 

I know that Thou, 

God, art in us dwelling, 

Interpreter 
And Comforter, 
ill power of man excelling. 

My life 

Is not a strife 
In darkness any longer; 

For Thou therein 

Dost frown on sin, 
Then smile to make me stronger. 

Thy strength 

Becomes at length 
A very fortress in me, 

From which no foe 

To overthrow- 
Hath any power to win me. 

Through Thee 
Eternity 
Is ever growing clearer, 
And day by day 
Upon my way 

1 know that Heaven is nearer. 



And some of you say sometimes, often I dare 
say, " I am tired, I am sick and weary of it all ; 
I would to God I were at rest ! " Why ? When 



102 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

has this heart-sickness overtaken you ? When 
has life seemed so poor and worthless ? When 
has your soul thus preyed upon itself, filled your 
face with restless sadness, and sapped your health 
in its very springs? Was it in the seasons when 
faith was strong, when the vision of the unseen 
realities was keen, when the light of God was on 
your tabernacle of life? Was it when your soul 
was armed and paraded for duty in God's ser- 
vice, and your noblest powers were drawn forth 
and strained in the work for Christ and man- 
kind ? Nay ! I see your form then, it is erect 
and eager ; I see your eye, it flashes with ardor ; 
I hear your voice, it rings with exultation; I catch 
the heart-beats, they are full and musical, and 
they throb with the energy of victorious life. No; 
no faintness then, no heart-sickness, no life-weari- 
ness then ; but abounding strength, abounding 
joy, abounding hope. There is but one thing 
which makes life worth having, worth living, and 
that makes it simply of priceless worth ; it was 
expressed in one brief phrase .by the lips of the 
dying Wesley : " The best of all is, God is with 
us." — J. Baldwin Brown. 




Thou art the true and nndofiled-. 



SIMPLICITY. X03 



JRmfify 



W,OME hither, little child, 
^ And bring thy heart to me : 
Thou art the true and undefiled, 
So full of melody. 

The presence of a child 

Has taught me more of Heaven, 
And more my heart has reconciled, 

Than Greece' immortal Seven. 

For when I sometimes think 
That vain are prayer and song, 

Before a little child I sink 
And own that I am wrong. 

And, lo, my heart grows bright, 
That was before so dark, 

Till in the tender morning light 
I find the vanished mark. 



Purity and simplicity are the two wings with 
which man soars above the earth and all tem- 
porary nature. Simplicity is in the intention, pur- 
ity in the affection : simplicity turns to God ; 
purity unites with and enjoys Him. If thou 
hadst simplicity and purity thou wouldst be able 



104 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

to comprehend all things without error, and be- 
hold them without danger. The pure heart 
safely pervades not only heaven but hell. — 
Thomas A Kempis. 

The truly great man is he who does not lose 
his child -heart. He does not think beforehand 
that his words shall be sincere, nor that his ac- 
tion shall be resolute : he simply always abides 
in the right. — Mencius. 

Innocence, in its highest degree, is wisdom ; 
for every one is wise so far as he is led by the 
Lord. The wiser the angels are, the more inno- 
cent they are ; and the more innocent they are, 
the more they seem to themselves like little chil- 
dren. SWEDENBORG. 

Even the child who is transiently with us in 
this world may paint on the darkness of our sor- 
row so fair a vision of loving wonder, of rever- 
ent trust, and of patience, that a Divine Presence 
abides with us forever, as the mild and constant 
light of hope and faith. — James Martineau. 

Simplicity is the character of the spring of 
life : costliness becomes its autumn ; but a neat- 
ness and purity, like that of the snowdrop or lily 
of the valley, is the peculiar fascination of beauty, 
to which it lends enchantment, and gives a charm 
even to a plain person, being to the body what 
amiability is to the mind. ... In character, 
in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is 
simplicity. — Longfellow. 

Simplicity is that grace which frees the soul 




The beauty of a wayside flower. 



VIRTUE. 105 

from all unnecessary reflections upon itself. — 
Fenelon. 

Are not the signs of the heavenly kingdom 
distinctly visible in the nature of a little child ? 
Love, simplicity, and faith are the characteristics 
of little children. How simple and touching is 
their faith ! Imitate little children, and trust. — N. 
L. Frothingham. 



^7f7HE spirit of a little child, 
^ The beauty of a wayside flower, 
And to the passions growing wild 

A silent and subduing power ; — 
The secret of the Second Man, 

The order of a perfect world — 
Our narrow words may never span 

All that in Virtue lies impearled : 
But human lives may compass it, 

And somewhat of its marvels show, 
With the bright beams celestial lit 

As once the Son of Man below ; 
And pour the sunshine of His love 

In calm effulgence all around, 
Till they to mute Amazement prove 

Divinity in man is found. 



106 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Virtue — says a writer of the last century, in a 
passage that was a great favorite with the poet 
Rogers, — Virtue is of intrinsic value and good 
desert, and of indispensable obligation ; not the 
creature of will, but necessary and immutable; not 
local or temporary, but of equal extent and an- 
tiquity with the Divine mind; not a mode of sen- 
sation, but everlasting Truth ; not dependent on 
power, but the guide of all power. Virtue is the 
foundation of honor and esteem, the source of 
all beauty, order, and happiness in nature. It is 
what confers value on all other endowments and 
qualities of a reasonable being, to which they 
ought to be absolutely subservient, and without 
which, the more eminent they are, the more hide- 
ous deformities and the greater curses they be- 
come. The use of it is not confined to any stage 
of our existence, or to any particular situation we 
can be in, but reaches through all the periods 
and circumstances of our being. Many of the 
endowments and talents we now possess, and of 
which we are too apt to be proud, will cease 
entirely with the present state ; but this will be 
our ornament and dignity in every future state 
to which we may be removed. Beauty and wit 
will die, learning will vanish away, and all the 
arts of life be soon forgot ; but Virtue will re- 
main forever. This unites us to the whole 
rational creation, and fits us for conversing with 
any order of superior natures, and for a place 
in any part of God's works. It procures us the 



VIRTUE. 107 

approbation of all wise and good beings, and 
renders them our allies and friends. But what 
is of unspeakably greater consequence is, that it 
makes God our friend, assimilates and unites our 
minds to His, and engages His almighty power 
in our defense. Superior beings of all ranks are 
bound by it no less than ourselves. It has the 
same authority in all worlds that it has in this. 
The further any being is advanced in excellence 
and perfection the greater is his attachment to 
it, and the more he is under its influence. To 
say no more, it is the law of the whole universe; 
it stands first in the estimation of the Deity ; its 
original is His nature ; and it is the very object 
that makes Him lovely. 

Such is the importance of Virtue. Of what 
consequence, therefore, is it that we practise it ! 
There is no argument or motive which is at all 
fitted to influence a reasonable mind, which does 
not call us to this. One virtuous disposition of 
soul is preferable to the greatest natural accom- 
plishments and abilities, and of more value than 
all the treasures of the world. If you are wise, 
then, study virtue, and contemn everything that 
can come in competition with it. Remember, that 
nothing else deserves one anxious thought or 
wish. Remember, that this alone is honor, glory, 
wealth and happiness. Secure this, and you se- 
cure everything ; lose this, and all is lost. — Dr. 
Price. 

There is but one pursuit in life which it is in 



103 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. 
It is subject to no disappointments, since he that 
perseveres makes every difficulty an advance- 
ment, and every contest a victory ; and this is 
the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after 
virtue is to gain her, and zealously to labor after 
her wages is to receive them. Those that seek 
her early will find her before it is late ; her re- 
ward also is with her, and she will come quickly. 
For the breast of a good man is a little heaven 
commencing on earth, where the Deity sits en- 
throned with unrivalled influence, every subju- 
gated passion " like the wind and storm fulfilling 
His word." — Colton. 



itooitom. 



^OODNESS needs no lure: 
^ All compensations are in her enshrined, 
Whatever things are right and fair and pure, 
Wealth of the heart and mind. 

Failure and success, 
The Day and Night of every life below, 
Are but the servants of her blessedness, 

That come and spend and go. 



GOODNESS. 109 

Life is her reward, 
A life brim-full, in every day's employ, 
Of sunshine, inspiration, every word 

And syllable of joy. 

Heaven to thee is known, 
If Goodness in the robes of common earth 
Becomes a presence thou canst call thine own, 

To warm thy heart and hearth. 

Goodness I call the habit, and goodness of na- 
ture the inclination. This, of all virtues and dig- 
nities of mind, is the greatest, being the character 
of the Deity, — and without it man is a busy, mis- 
chievous, wretched thing, — no better than a kind 
of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological 
virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. 
The desire of power in excess caused the angels 
to fall ; the desire of knowledge in excess caused 
man to fall ; but in charity there is no excess, 
neither can angel or man come in danger by it. — 
Lord Bacon. 

A holy hermit had passed a long life in a cave 
of the Thebaid, remote from all intercourse with 
mankind. He fasted and prayed, and performed 
many severe penances ; and his whole thought 
was how he should make himself of account with 
God, so that he might be sure of a seat in Para- 
dise. 

Having lived in this way for threescore and 
ten years, he became much puffed up with ideas 



HO IDEALS OF LIFE. 

of his own sanctity. He besought the Lord to 
show him some saint greater than himself, that he 
might imitate him ; thinking, perhaps, that the 
Lord would reply that there was no saint greater 
and holier than he was. 

That same night an angel appeared to him 
and said : " If thou wouldst excel all others in 
virtue and sanctity, strive to imitate a certain min- 
strel who goes singing and begging from door to 
door." 

The hermit, in great astonishment, took his 
staff and went forth in search of the minstrel. 
And when he found him, he questioned him earn- 
estly, saying, " Tell me, I pray thee, brother, what 
prayers and penance and good works thou hast 
performed, by which thou hast made thyself ac- 
ceptable to God ?" 

The man was greatly surprised to be accosted 
in that manner. He hung down his head, and 
replied : " I beseech thee, holy father, not to mock 
me. I have performed no good works ; and as 
for praying, alas ! sinner that I am, I am not 
worthy to pray. I only go from door to door, to 
amuse people with my viol and my flute." 

The hermit insisted, and said ; " But peradven- 
ture even in the midst of this thy evil life thou 
hast done some good works." 

The man replied : " Nay, I know of nothing 
good that I have done." 

The hermit, wondering more and more, said : 
" How hast thou become a beggar ? Hast thou 



CONSCIENCE. Ill 

spent thy substance in riotous living, like most 
others of thy calling ?" 

The man answered . " Nay, not so. But I met 
a poor woman running hither and thither dis- 
tracted, because her husband and children had 
been sold into slavery, to pay a debt. The wo- 
man was very beautiful, and certain sons of Bel- 
ial pursued after her. I took her home and pro- 
tected her from them. I gave her all I possessed 
to redeem her family ; then I conducted her safely 
to the city, where she was reunited to her hus- 
band and children. But what of that, my father ? 
Is there any man who would not have done the 
same ?" 

The hermit, hearing these words, shed tears. 
" Alas,', said he, " I have not done so much good 
in all my long life ; yet they call me a man of 
God: and thou art only a poor minstrel." — St. 
Jerome. 



immtstttk 



HE Spirit that so calmly strives with man, 
Of old was conscience to Elijah's breast ; 
Through which a tremor of contrition ran, 

And vanished but with self and sin confessed. 



112 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

The still small voice was vocal in a look, 

When three times Peter had denied his Lord; 

And tears went flowing like a mountain brook, 
Made burning through a false, ungrateful word. 

The silent whisper which his bosom stirred 
Amid the trappings of the Judgment Hall, 

In vain, in vain the troubled Pilate heard, 

And who shall paint the darkness of his fall? 

Full many a time all hear the Voice Divine, 
For every one is born a child of God: 

Full many a time does light from Heaven shine 
To show the pilgrim the Celestial road. 

Ah, what of them who will not see or heed, 
All self- directed in the course they run? 

God summons to account for every deed 
In light above the brightness of the sun. 



A man's first, care should be to avoid the re- 
proaches of his own heart; his next, to escape 
the censure of the world. If the last interferes 
with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; 
but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfac- 
tion to an honest mind than to see those appro- 
bations which it gives itself, seconded by the ap- 
plause of the public. A man is more sure of his 
conduct when the verdict which he passes upon 
his own behavior is thus warranted and confirmed 
by the opinion of all that know him. — Addison. 



CONSCIENCE. 113 

A tender conscience, of all things, ought to be 
tenderly handled : for if you do not, you injure 
not only the conscience, but the whole moral 
frame and constitution is injured, recurring at 
times to remorse, and seeking refuge only in 
making the conscience callous. — Burke. 

He that loses his conscience has nothing left 
that is worth keeping. Therefore, be sure you 
look to that. And, in the next place, look to 
your health ; and if you have it, praise God, and 
value it next to a good conscience ; for health is 
the second blessing that we mortals are capable 
of; a blessing that money cannot buy; therefore 
value it, and be thankful for it — Izaak Walton. 

The testimony of a good conscience will make 
the comforts of Heaven descend upon man's 
weary head like a refreshing dew or shower 
upon a parched land. It will give him lively 
earnests and secret anticipations of approaching 
joy ; it will bid his soul go out of the body un- 
dauntedly, and lift up his head with confidence 
before saints and angels. The comfort which it 
conveys is greater than the capacities of mor- 
tality can appreciate, mighty and unspeakable, and 
not to be understood till it is felt. — South. 

What comfort does overflow the devout soul 
from a consciousness of its own innocence and 
integrity.- — Tillotson. 



114 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



intllj mtb ibbbnt^ 



If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of 
God, or whether I speak of myself. — St. John. VII. 17. 



)irRUTH and Obedience 
*®^ Are wonder-working powers, 
Whose foot-prints are their evidence 
Through all this world of ours : 
The trainers in the race 
To an eternal goal : 
Revealers of undying grace, 
The beauty of the soul. 

Truth and Obedience 

Can wash out many a taint, 
Tame the wild hands of Violence, 

Turn sinner into saint ; 

And bring the Age of Gold 

God's singers see afar, 
Until the blessed things foretold 

Become the things that are. 



Truth is the light of the Infinite Mind, and the 
image of God in his creatures. Nothing endures 
but truth. The dreams, fictions, theories, which 
men would substitute for it, soon die. Without 
its guidance effort is vain, and hope baseless. 
Accordingly, the love of truth, a deep thirst for it, 
a deliberate purpose to seek it and hold it fast, 






TRUTH AND OBEDIENCE. 115 

may be considered as the very foundation of hu- 
man culture and dignity. Precious as thought is, 
the love of truth is still more precious ; for 
without it — thought wanders and wastes itself, 
and precipitates men into guilt and misery. There 
is no greater defect in education and the pulpit 
than that they inculcate so little an impartial, 
earnest, reverential love of truth, a readiness to 
toil, to live and die for it. Let the laboring man 
be imbued in a measure with this spirit; let him 
learn to regard himself as endowed with the power 
of thought, for the very end of acquiring truth ; 
let him learn to regard truth as more precious than 
his daily bread; and the spring of true and per- 
petual elevation is touched within him. He has 
begun to be a man ; he becomes one of the elect 
of his race. Nor do I despair of this elevation of 
the laborer. Unhappily little, almost nothing, has 
been done as yet to inspire either rich or poor 
with the love of truth for its own sake, or for the 
life and inspiration, and dignity it gives to the 
soul. The prosperous have as little of this prin- 
ciple as the laboring mass. I think, instead, that 
the spirit of the luxurious, fashionable life, is more 
hostile to it than the hardships of the poor. Un- 
der a wise culture, this principle may be awak- 
ened in all classes, and wherever awakened, it 
will form philosophers, successful and noble think- 
ers. These remarks seem to me particularly im- 
portant, as showing how intimate a union sub- 
sists between the moral and intellectual nature, 



116 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

and how both must work together from the begin- 
ning. All human culture rests on a moral found- 
ation, on an impartial, disinterested spirit, on a. 
willingness to make sacrifices to the truth. With- 
out this moral power, mere force of thought avails 
nothing towards our elevation. — Channing. 



nm« 



^UPRIGHTNESS is the talisman of life, 
***" With charity and every virtue rife, 

To render one invincible : 
Who bears it with him through the sun and 

storm, 
At every moment has his ranks in form 

To stand against the gates of hell. 



In ancient times, a man in the East received 
from venerated hands a ring of inestimable value. 
In it was set a precious opal, from which differ- 
ent colors glanced as the light varied ; and there 
was a virtue within this ring, which made him 
who wore it, and believed in its efficacy, beloved 
by God and man. Naturally, therefore, the owner 
of this ring never removed it from his finger, 



UPRIGHTNESS. 117 

and was desirous to transmit it to his posterity. 
When he felt death approaching, he gave it to 
his favorite son, and ordained that when this son 
died, he also should bequeath it to whichever of 
his sons he loved the best, without regard to 
priority of birth; and that whoever came into 
possession of it should, by virtue thereof, become 
lord of the house. 

In this way the ring descended from son to 
son, till at last it was owned by a father who 
had three sons equally dear to him. They were 
all so obedient and good, that, in the weakness 
of his affection for them, he sometimes promised 
the ring to one and sometimes to another. So, when 
death approached, he was much embarrassed ; for 
it pained him to disappoint two of his sons for 
the benefit of the third one. In this dilemma, 
he sent for a jeweller and ordered him to make 
two rings after the model of the original ring, 
and to spare no pains or cost to make them so 
much alike that one could not be distinguished 
from the other. The jeweller obeyed his orders 
so well that the father himself could not tell the 
rings apart. On each of his sons he separately 
bestowed one of the rings, blessed him and died. 

When he was gone, each one of the sons 
claimed to be the sole lord of the house, by vir- 
tue of his ring. Hence contention arose, and 
they appealed to the judge to settle their con- 
tending claims. Each one of them showed his 
ring, and swore that he received it from his 



118 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

father's hand. How was the true ring to be 
distinguished from the others ? The judge said : 
" Unless I could summon your father himself as 
a witness, it is impossible for me to decide which 
of these rings is the real one. But, hold ! I do 
perceive one means of proving which of them is 
genuine. You say the real ring had an inward 
power which made all who wore it, and who be- 
lieved in its efficacy, beloved of God and man. 
Now tell me, which one of you do the two other 
brothers love the best ? You are silent. Is it 
because each one of you loves himself alone ? 
Then, you are all deceived and deceivers. None 
of your rings is the true one. Perhaps the real 
ring is gone, and your father, to hide the loss, 
may have ordered three for one. But if, instead 
of a decision, you will take my advice, I counsel 
each one of you to believe his own ring to be 
the genuine one. Your father loved you all 
alike. Perhaps he did not want to justify either 
one of you in claiming superiority over the other 
two ; but desired that each of you should feel 
honored by a token of his free affection. There- 
fore, let each one of you try who best can mani- 
fest the inward virtue of the real ring. Let 
each one assist the power of his ring by gentle- 
ness, benevolence, lorbearance, and resignation to 
the will of God. If the virtues of your rings are 
manifested in this way by yourselves, by your 
children, and your children's children, a Greater 
Judge than I am will decide the question of gen- 
uineness." — Lessing. 



COURTESY. 119 



§XHtrfe$| + 



fT?HE savor of our household talk 
*** Which earneth silent thanks : 
The glory of our daily walk 
Among the busy ranks. 

Life's cleanly, lubricating oil 

In which a help is found 
To make the wheels of common toil 

Go lightly, swiftly round. 

Politeness in a thousand forms 

One cannot stop to name, 
Correcting while it cheers and warms, 

Like Paul imparting blame. 

Benevolence and grace of heart 
That gives no needless pain, 

And pours a balm on every smart 
Till smiles appear again. 



A man's manner, to a certain extent, indicates 
his character. It is the external exponent of his 
inner nature. It indicates his taste, his feelings, 
and his temper, as well as the society to which he 
has been accustomed. There is a conventional 
manner, which is of comparatively little import- 



120 WEALS OF LIFE. 

ance; but the natural manner, the outcome of nat- 
ural gifts, improved by careful self-culture, signi- 
fies a great deal. 

Grace of manner is inspired by sentiment, 
which is a source of no slight enjoyment to a 
cultivated mind. Viewed in this light, sentiment 
is of almost as much importance as talents and 
acquirements, while it is even more influential in 
giving the direction to a man's tastes and char- 
acter. Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks 
the hearts of others. It not only teaches polite- 
ness and courage, but gives insight and unfolds 
wisdom, and may almost be regarded as the 
crowning grace of humanity. 

Artificial rules of politeness are of very little 
use. What passes by the name of " Etiquette " 
is often of the essence of impoliteness and un- 
truthfulness. It consists in a great measure of 
posture-making, and is easily seen through. Even 
at best, etiquette is but a substitute for good man- 
ners, though it is often but their mere counterfeit. 

Good manners consist, for the most part, in 
courteousness and kindness. Politeness has been 
described as the art of showing, by external 
signs, the internal regard we have for others. 
But one may be perfectly polite to another with- 
out necessarily having a special regard for him. 
Good manners are neither more nor less than beau- 
tiful behavior. It has been well said that "a beau- 
tiful form is better than a beautiful face, and a 
beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form ; 



COURTESY. 121 

it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pic- 
tures — it is the finest of the fine arts." 

The truest politeness comes of sincerity. It 
must be the outcome of the heart, or it will make 
no lasting impression ; for no amount of polish 
can dispense with truthfulness. The natural char- 
acter must be allowed to appear, freed of its sin- 
gularities and asperities. Though politeness, in its 
best form, should (as St. Francis de Sales says) 
resemble water — " best when clearest, most simple, 
and without taste " — yet genius in a man will al- 
ways cover many defects of manner, and much 
will be excused to the strong and original. With- 
out genuineness and individuality, human life 
would lose much of its interest and variety, as 
well as its .manliness and robustness of character. 

True courtesy is kind. It exhibits itsetf in 
the disposition to contribute to the happiness of 
others, and in refraining from all that may annoy 
them. It is grateful as well as kind and readily 
acknowledges kind actions. Curiously enough, 
Captain Speke found this quality of character 
recognized even among the natives of Uganda, on 
the shores of Lake Nyanza, in the heart of Africa, 
where, he says, " Ingratitude, or neglecting to thank 
a person for a benefit conferred, is punishable." 

True politeness especially exhibits itself in re- 
gard for the personality of others. A man will 
respect the individuality of another, if he wishes 
to be respected himself. He will have due re- 
gard for his views and opinions, even though they 



122 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

differ from his own. The well-mannered man pays 
a compliment to another, and sometimes even se- 
cures his respect, by patiently listening to him. 
He is simply tolerant and forbearant, and re- 
frains from judging harshly ; and harsh judgments 
of others will almost invariably provoke harsh 
judgment of ourselves. 

The impolite, impulsive man will, however, 
sometimes rather loose his friend than his joke. 
He may surely be pronounced a very foolish per- 
son who secures another's hatred at the price of 
a moment's gratification. It was a saying of Bru- 
nei the engineer — himself one of the kindest-na- 
tured of men — that " spite and ill-nature are among 
the most expensive luxuries of life." — Smiles. 

A man has no more right to say an uncivil 
thing than to act one ; no more right to say a 
rude thing to another than to knock him down. — 
Dr. Johnson. 

Incivility is the extreme of pride ; it is built on 
the contempt of mankind. — Zimmermann. 

Nothing is more silly than the pleasure some 
people take in " speaking their minds." A man of 
this make will say a rude thing for the mere 
pleasure of saying it, when an opposite behavior, 
full as innocent, might have preserved his friend, 
or made his fortune. — Sir Richard Steele. 

Men are like wine ; not good before the lees 
of clownishness be settled. — Felltham. 

I know men — I am sure they are tyrants at 
home, bully their servants, pester their wives, and 



COURTESY. 123 

beat their childern — who seem to take a delight in 
harrassing, badgering, objurgating the waiter ; set- 
ting pit-falls in the reckoning that he may stumble, 
and giving him confused orders that he may trip 
himself up. These are the men who call in the 
landlord and demand the waiter's instant dismissal 
because their mutton-chops has a curly tail; these 
are the pleasant fellows who threaten to write to 
the Times because the cayenne pepper won't 
come out of the caster. These are the jocund 
fellows who quarrel with the cabmen and menace 
them with ruin and the tread-mill. — Household 
Words. 

Manners are the shadows of virtues ; the mo- 
mentary display of those qualities which our fel- 
low-creatures love and respect. If we strive to be- 
come then what we strive to appear, manners 
may often be rendered useful guides to the per- 
formance of our duties. — Sydney Smith. 

Manners are of more importance than laws. 
Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. 
The law touches us but here and there, and now 
and then, Manners are what vex or soothe, 
corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or 
refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible 
operation, like that the air we breathe in. They 
give their whole form and color to our lives. Ac- 
cording to their quality, they aid morals, they 
supply them, or they totally destroy them. — Burke. 

I soon found the advantage of this change in 
my manners: the conversations I engaged in 



124 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

went on more pleasantly. The modest way in 
which I proposed my opinions procured them a 
readier reception and less contradiction. I had 
less mortification when I was found to be in the 
wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others 
to give up their mistakes and join with me when 
I happened to be in the right. And this mode, 
which I at first put on with some violence to 
natural inclination, became at length easy, and so 
habitual to me that perhaps for the last fifty 
years no one has ever heard a dogmatical ex- 
pression escape me. — Dr. Franklin. 

The manner of saying or of doing anything 
goes a great way in the value of the thing itself. 
It was well said of him that called a good office 
that was done harshly and with an ill-will, a stony 
piece of bread : it is necessary for him that is 
hungry to receive it, but it almost chokes a man 
in the going down. — Seneca. 

True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. 
It simply consists in treating others just as you 
love to be treated yourself. — Lord Chesterfield. 

All the possible charities of life ought to be 
cultivated, and where we can be neither brethren 
nor friends, let us be kind neighbors and pleas- 
ant acquaintances. — Burke. 

Compliments of congratulation are always 
kindly taken, and cost one nothing but pen, 
ink, and paper. — Lord Chesterfield. 

It is all very well to say, " There is no use in 
bidding Good-morrow, or Good-night, to those 



COURAGE. 125 

who know I wish it ; of sending one's love, in a 
letter, to those who do not doubt it," etc. All 
this sounds very well in theory, but it will not 
do for practice. Scarce any friendship, or any 
politeness, is so strong - as to be able to subsist 
without any external supports of this kind ; and it 
is even better to have too much form than too 
little. — Whately. 

Air and manner are more expressive than 
words. — Richardson. 

We are to carry it from the hand to the 
heart ; to improve a ceremonial nicety into a sub- 
stantial duty, and the modes of civility into the 
realities of religion. — South. 



-* 



intirngs, 



£7[?HE resolution of the heart 
^ At which bewildering fears depart, 
Is courage which befits the man 
Who seeks a place within the van. 

Equipment of a quiet mind 
With eyes before and eyes behind, 
Which daily duties always fill, 
Is courage of a manly will. 



126 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

The temper of old Latimer, 

From whose great heart the bugle - stir 

Of prophecy, amid the flame, 

Is heard at mention of his name, — 

Is courage of celestial mould 
Beyond all earthly boldness bold ; 
Which sees the hard - fought battle gained 
And God's minority sustained. 



A great deal of talent is lost in the world for 
the want of a little courage. Every day sends 
to their graves a number of obscure men who 
have only remained in obscurity because their 
timidity has prevented them from making a first 
effort ; and who, if they could have been induced 
to begin, would in all probability have gone great 
lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, that 
to do anything in this world worth doing, we 
must not stand back shivering and thinking of 
the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble 
through as well as we can. It will not do to be 
perpetually calculating risks and adjusting nice 
chances ; it did very well before the Flood, when 
a man could consult his friends upon an intended 
publication for a hundred and fifty years, and 
then live to see his success afterwards ; but at 
present a man waits, and doubts, and consults 
his brother and his particular friends, till one fine 
day he finds that he is sixty years of age ; that 
he has lost so much time in consulting his first 






COURAGE. 127 

cousins and particular friends, that he has no 
more time to follow their advice. — Sydney Smith. 

It is the strong and courageous men who 
lead and guide and rule the world. The weak 
and timid leave no trace behind them ; while the 
life of a single upright and energetic man is like 
a track of light. His example is remembered and 
appealed to ; and his thoughts, his spirit, and his 
courage continue to be the inspiration of succeed- 
ing generations. 

It is energy — the central element of which is 
will — that produces the miracles of enthusiasm in 
all ages. Everywhere it is the mainspring of 
what is called force of character, and the sustain- 
ing power of all great action. In a righteous 
cause the determined man stands upon his cour- 
age as upon a granite block; and, like David, 
he will go forth to meet Goliath, strong in heart 
though a host be encamped against him. 

Men often conquer difficulties because they 
feel they can. Their confidence in themselves 
inspires the confidence of others. When Caesar 
was at sea, and a storm began to rage, the cap- 
tain of the ship which carried him became un- 
manned by fear. " What art thou afraid of? " 
cried the great captain ; " thy vessel carries Cae- 
sar ! " The courage of the brave man is conta- 
gious, and carries others along with it. His 
stronger nature awes weaker natures into silence, 
or inspires them with his own will and purpose. 

The persistent man will not be baffled or re- 



128 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

pulsed by opposition. Diogenes, desirous of be- 
coming the disciple of Antisthenes, went and 
offered himself to the cynic. He was refused. 
Diogenes, still persisting, the cynic raised his 
knotty staff, and threatened to strike him if he 
did not depart. " Strike ! " said Diogenes ; " you 
will not find a stick hard enough to conquer my 
perseverance." Antisthenes, overcome, had not 
another word to say, but forthwith accepted him 
as his pupil. 

Energy of temperament, with a moderate de- 
gree of wisdom, will carry a man farther than 
any amount of intellect without it. Energy 
makes the man of practical ability. It gives 
him vis, force, momentum. It is the active motive 
power of character ; and, if combined with saga- 
city and self-possession, will enable a man to em- 
ploy his powers to the best advantage in all the 
affairs of life. — Smiles. 

Dear daughter — wrote a great artist — strive 
to be of good courage, to be gentle - hearted ; 
these are the true qualities for a woman. Trou- 
bles everybody must expect. There is but one 
way of looking at fate — whatever that be, whether 
blessings or afflictions — to behave with dignity 
under both. We must not lose heart, or it will 
be the worse both for ourselves and for those 
whom we love. To struggle, and again and again 
renew the conflict — this is life's inheritance. — Ary 

SCHEFFER. 

As to moral courage, I have rarely met with 



COURAGE. 129 

the two o'clock in the morning courage. I mean, un- 
prepared courage, that which is necessary on an 
unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the 
most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of 
judgment and decision. — Napoleon I. 

Johnson, with that native fortitude which, 
amidst all his bodily distress and mental suffer- 
ings, never forsook him, asked Dr. Brocklesby, 
as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him 
plainly whether he could recover. "Give me," 
said he, "a direct answer." The doctor, having 
first asked him if he could bear the whole truth, 
which way soever it might lead, and being an- 
swered that he could, declared that, in his opin- 
ion, he could not recover without a miracle. 
" Then," said Johnson, " I will take no more phy- 
sic, not even my opiates ; for I have prayed that 
I may render my soul up to God unclouded." — 

BOSWELL. 

" Be of good comfort," said the brave old Lat- 
imer to his companion at the stake ; " be of good 
comfort, Master Ridley, for we shall this day light 
such a candle through all England as, by God's 
grace, shall never be put out." When, after the 
restoration of Charles II., Sir John Elliot was rid- 
ing to the place of execution, he stood up in the 
cart, on seeing his wife looking down upon him 
from a window in the Tower, and waved his hat 
and said, " To heaven, my love ; to heaven, my 
love, and leave you in the storm ! " . 



130 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



Jterisimt 



SfgECISION is the soul of luck, 

^~ Which, flashing through it, makes it pluck, 

The genius and the power to do 

That which the lightning brings to view. 

Decision walks on solid ground, 

A factor in the world around : 

It treads wherever Truth commands, 

And firm become the shrinking sands. 

Decision lingers not with fate, 
On which is writ the word " Too late," 
But through the gate of Penitence 
Pursues the way of Providence. 

Without Decision life is lost, 
A ship upon the ocean tost, 
Without a rudder or a hand 
To guide it to the wished - for land. 



A man without decision can never be said to 
belong to himself; since, if he dared to assert 
that he did, the puny force of some cause, about 
as powerful you would have supposed as a spi- 
der, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster 
the very next moment, and contemptuously ex- 
hibit the futility of the determinations by which 



DECISION. 131 

he was to have proved the independence of his 
understanding and will. He belongs to whatever 
can make captive of him ; and one thing after 
another vindicates its right to him, by arresting 
him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and 
chips floating near the edge of a river are inter- 
cepted by every weed, and whirled in every little 
eddy. Having concluded on a design, he may 
pledge himself to accomplish it, if the hundred 
diversities of feeling which may come within the 
work will let him. His character precluding all 
foresight of his conduct, he may sit and wonder 
what form and direction his views and actions 
are destined to take to-morrow ; as a farmer has 
often to acknowledge that next day's proceedings 
are often at the disposal of its winds and clouds. 
— John Foster. 

And of all wretched characters, the man "who 
can never make up his mind " is the most 
wretched. A torment to himself, he is the re- 
proach and laughter of others, who frequently 
suffer in no small degree from his hesitation, 
delay and fickleness. There can scarcely be any 
more fatal censure passed upon a man than that 
implied in the Patriarch's apostrophe to his son: 
" Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." The 
very promise of well-doing must be denied to 
the waverer. History has recorded the evils in- 
flicted on two nations by the instability of James 
I. of England and VI. of Scotland ; and many of 
us have read with appreciation the anecdote of 



132 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

the criticism so aptly passed upon him by his 
chaplain, who, when ordered to preach before the 
king, read as his text, with emphatic significance, 
" yames i. and 6th — " He that wavereth is like a 
wave of the sea driven with the wind and 
tossed," provoking from the self-conscious mon- 
arch the exclamation, " Saul o' my body, he is at 
me already ! " — Adams. 

Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer 
themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pur- 
suing them, are the greater and most universal 
causes of all our disquiet and unhappiness. When 
ambition pulls one way, interest another, and in- 
clination a third, and perhaps reason contrary to 
all, a man is likely to pass his time but ill when 
he has so many different parties to please. When 
the mind hovers among such a variety of alure- 
ments, one had better settle on a way of life that 
is not the very best we might have chosen, than 
grow old without determining our choice, and go 
out of the world, as the greater part of mankind 
do, before we have resolved how to live in it. 
There is but one method of setting ourselves at 
rest in this particular, and that is by adhering 
steadfastly to one great end as the chief and ulti- 
mate aim of all our pursuits. If we are firmly 
resolved to live up to the dictates of reason, 
without any regard to wealth, reputation, or the 
like considerations, any more than as they fall in 
with our principal design, we may go through 
life with steadiness and pleasure ; but if we act 



CHARACTER. 133 

by several broken views, and will not only be 
virtuous, but wealthy, popular, and everything 
that has a value set upon it by the world, we 
shall live and die in misery and repentance. — 
Addison. 

I would recommend to every one that admir- 
able precept which Pythagoras is said to have given 
to his disciples, and which that philosopher 
must have drawn from the observation which I 
have enlarged upon ; Optimum vitae genus eligito, 
nam consuetudo faciei jucundissimum : " Pitch upon 
that course of life which is the most excellent, 
and custom will render it the most delightful." 
Men whose circumstances will permit them to 
choose their own way of life are inexcusable if 
they do not pursue that which their judgment 
tells them is the most laudable. The voice of 
reason is more to be regarded than the bent of 
any present inclination, since, by the rule above 
mentioned, inclination will at length come over to 
reason, though we can never force reason to com- 
ply with inclination. — Addison. 



Slptnttfer, 



HE fortress of the man, 
*^ Built on a base divine, 



134 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Through which no tremor ever ran 
To break its perfect line. 

The wondrous citadel, 

Which reaches unto Heaven, 

Wherein courageous angels dwell, 
To whom its keys are given. 

The noblest thing which God 
Has honored with His mark, 

And made a beacon on the road, 
Far - shining through the dark. 

The property which all 

Who build upon the truth 

Are girded with — the jasper wall 
Around eternal youth. 



Character is one of the greatest motive pow- 
ers in the world. In its noblest embodiments, it 
exemplifies human nature in its highest forms, for 
it exhibits man at his best. 

Men of genuine excellence, in every station of 
life — men of industry, of integrity, of high prin- 
ciple, of sterling honesty of purpose — command 
the spontaneous homage of mankind. It is natu- 
ral to believe in such men, to have confidence 
in them, and to imitate them. All that is good 
in the world is upheld by them, and without their 
presence in it the world would not be worth liv- 
ing in. 



CHARACTER. 135 

Although genius always commands admiration, 
character most secures respect. The former is 
more the product of brain-power, the latter of 
heart -power; and in the long run it is the heart 
that rules in life. Men of genius stand to society 
in the relation of its intellect, as men of character 
of its conscience ; and while the former are ad- 
mired, the latter are followed. — Smiles. 

You insist, — wrote the author of this para- 
graph to a friend, — on respect for learned men. 
I say, Amen ! But, at the same time, don't for- 
get that eagerness of mind, depth of thought, 
appreciation of the lofty, experience of the world, 
delicacy of manner, tact and energy in action, 
love of truth, honesty, and amiability — that all 
these may be wanting in a man who may yet be 
very learned. — Perthes. 

I have read books enough, and observed and 
conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly- 
cultured minds, too, in my time; but, I assure 
you, I have heard higher sentiments from the 
lips of poor, uneducated men and women, when 
exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism 
under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their 
simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of 
friends and neighbors, than I ever yet met with- 
out of the Bible. We shall never learn to feel 
and respect our real calling and destiny, unless 
we have taught ourselves to consider everything 
as moonshine, compared with the education of 
the heart. — Sir Walter Scott. 



136 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Character is property. It is the noblest of 
possessions. It is an estate in the general good- 
will of men ; and they who invest in it — though 
they may not become rich in .this world's goods 
— will find their reward in esteem and reputation 
fairly and honorably won. And it is right that 
in life good qualities should tell — that industry, 
virtue, and goodness should rank the highest — 
and that the really best men should be foremost. 

Simple honesty of purpose in a man goes a 
long way in life, if founded on a just estimate 
of himself and a steady obedience to the rule he 
knows and feels to be right. It holds a man 
straight, gives him strength and sustenance, and 
forms a main spring of vigorous action. " No 
man," once said Sir Benjamin Rudyard, " is bound 
to be rich or great — no, nor to be wise ; but every 
man is bound to be honest." — Smiles. 

A good character, when established, should not 
be rested in as an end, but only employed as a 
means of doing still farther good. — Atterbury. 

There is no man at once either excellently 
good or extremely evil, but grows either as he 
holds himself up in virtue or lets himself slide to 
viciousness. — Sir Philip Sidney. 

As a man thinks or desires in his heart, such, 
indeed, he is ; for then most truly, because most 
incontrollably, he acts himself. — South. 

Health and sickness, enjoyment and suffering, 
riches and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, 
power and subjection, liberty and bondage, civil- 



COMMON SENSE. 137 

ization and barbarity, have all their offices and 
duties; all serve for the formation of character. — 
Paley. 

It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there 
is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. 
— Swift. 



§ 



Inittmrra mnn. 



fTpHE lightning of the common mind, 
^ Which pierces to the heart of things, 
While logic lingers far behind, 

Possessed of no celestial wings ; 
The native faculty of man, 

Which separates the false and true, 
As only eyes of wisdom can, 

And sees the thing to say or do. 



To act with common sense, according to the 
moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best 
philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world 
as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless 
the goodness which has given us so much happi- 
ness with it, whatever it is, and despise affecta- 
tion. — Horace Walpole. 
10 



138 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

The longer we live, the more we are con- 
vinced of the justice of the old saying, that an 
ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy ; 
that discretion, gentle manners, common sense, 
and good nature, are, in men of high ecclesiasti- 
cal station, of far more importance than the 
greatest skill in distinguishing between sublap- 
sarian and supralapsarian doctrines. — Sydney 
Smith. 

Common sense should lie at the bottom of all 
enterprises, the literary and poetical as well as 
the practical and scientific. Good sense is the 
ballast of genius ; nay, we might say, it is the 
cargo itself out of which genius works its suc- 
cesses. — Calvert. 

When asked how he felt on the ill-success of 
his tragedy, he (Dr. Johnson) replied, " Like the 
monument ; " meaning that he continued firm and 
unmoved as that column. And, let it be remem- 
bered, as an admonition to the genus irritabile 
of dramatic writers, that this great man, instead 
of peevishly complaining of the bad taste of the 
town, submitted to its decision without a murmur. 
He had, indeed, upon all occasions a great def- 
erence for the general opinion. " A man," said 
he, " who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or 
wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes 
that he can instruct or amuse them ; and the 
public to whom he appeals must, after all, be the 
judges of his pretensions." — Boswell. 

Gov. Hubbard, of Connecticut, once called at 






COMMON SENSE. 139 

the White House in reference to a newly-in- 
vented gun, concerning which a committee had 
been appointed to make a report. The report 
was sent for, and when it came in was found to 
be of the most voluminous description. Mr. Lin- 
coln glanced at it, and said : " I should want a 
new lease of life to read this through ! " Throw- 
ing it down upon the table, he added : " Why 
can't a committee of this kind occasionally ex- 
hibit a grain of common sense ? If I send a man 
to buy a horse for me, I expect him to tell me 
his points — not how many hairs there are in his 
tail." — Stories of Lincoln. 

Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so 
useful as common sense : there are forty men of 
wit for one of good sense ; and he that will carry 
nothing about with him but gold will be every 
day at a loss for readier change. — Addison. 

What we call good sense in the conduct of 
life consists chiefly in that temper of mind which 
enables its possessor to view at all times, with 
perfect coolness and accuracy, all the various cir- 
cumstances of his situation : so that each of them 
may produce its due impression on him, without 
any exaggeration arising from his own peculiar 
habits. But to a man of an ill-regulated imagina- 
tion, external circumstances only serve as limits 
to excite his own thoughts, and the conduct he 
pursues has in general far less reference to his 
real situation than to some imaginary one in 
which he conceives himself to be placed ; and in 



140 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

consequence of which, while he appears to him- 
self to be acting with the most perfect wisdom 
and consistency, he may frequently exhibit to 
others all the appearances of folly. — Dugald 
Stewart. 



mm$4 



A BALLAD FOR NEW-YEAR DAY. 

t£?)H did you not see him that over the snow 
<2 *^ Came on with a pace so cautious and slow? — 

That measured his step to a pendulum-tick, 
Arriving in town when the darkness was thick? 

I saw him last night, with locks so gray, 
A little way off, as the light died away. 

And I knew him at once, so often before 
Had he silently, mournfully passed at my door. 

He must be cold and weary, I said, 
Coming so far, with that measured tread. 

I will urge him to linger awhile with me 
Till his withering chill and weariness flee. 

A story — who knows ? — he may deign to rehearse, 
And when he is gone I will put it in verse. 



TIME. 141 

I turned to prepare for the coming- guest, 
With curious, troublous thoughts oppressed. 

The window I cheered with the taper's glow 
Which glimmered afar o'er the spectral snow. 

My anxious care the hearth-stone knew, 

And the red flames leaped and beckoned anew. 

But chiefly myself, with singular care, 
Did I for the hoary presence prepare. 

Yet with little success, as I paced the room, 
Did I labor to banish a sense of gloom. 

My thoughts were going and coming like bees, 
With store from the year's wide-stretching leas, 

Some laden with honey, some laden with gall, 
And into my heart they dropped it all ! 

O miserable heart, at once over-run 

With the honey and gall thou canst not shun. 

O wretched heart ! in sadness I cried, 
Where is thy trust in the Crucified ? 

And in wrestling prayer did I labor long 
That the Mighty One would make me strong. 

That prayer was more than a useless breath: 
It brought to my soul God's saving health. 

When the hours went by on their sluggish flight, 
And came the middle watch of the night ; 



142 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

In part unmanned, in spite of my care, 
I beheld my guest in the taper's glare; 

A wall of darkness around him thick, 
As onward he came to a pendulum- tick. 

Then quickly I opened wide the door, 
And bade him pass my threshold o'er, 

And linger awhile away from the cold, 
And repeat some story or ballad old — 

His weary limbs to strengthen with rest, 
For his course to the ever receding west. 

Through the vacant door in wonder I olanced, 

<-> o » 

And stood — was it long? — as one entranced. 

Silence so awful did fill the room, 

That the tick of the clock was a cannon's boom. 

And my heart it sank to its lowest retreat, 
And in whelming awe did muffle its beat. 

For now I beheld, as never before, 
And heard to forget, ah, nevermore ! 

For with outstretched hand, with scythe and glass, 
With naught of a pause did the traveller pass. 

And with upturned face he the silence broke, 
And thus, as he went, he measuredly spoke ; 

My journey is long, but my limbs are strong; 
And I stay not for rest, for story, or song. 



TIME. 143 

It is only a dirge, that ever I sing; 

It is only of death, the tale that I bring: 

Of death that is life, as it cometh to pass; 
Of death that is death, alas! alas! 

And these I chant, as I go on my way, 
As I go on my way forever and aye. 

Call not thyself wretched, though bitter and sweet, 
In thy cup at this hour intermingle and meet. 

Some cloud with the sunshine must ever appear, 
And darkness prevails till morning is near. 

But who doth remember the gloom of the night, 
When the sky is aglow with the beautiful light ? 

Oh alas ! if thou drinkest the bitter alone, 
Nor heaven nor earth may stifle thy moan ! 

Thy moan ! — and the echo died away — 
Thy moan ! thy moan forever and aye ! 

His measured voice I heard no more, 
But not till I stand on eternity's shore, 

And the things of time be forgotten all, 
Shall I cease that traveller's words to recall. 

As onward he moved to a pendulum- tick, 
The gloom and darkness around him thick, 

I fell on my knees and breathed a prayer ; 
And it rose, I ween, through the midnight air 



144 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

To a God who knoweth the wants and all 
The evil and good of this earthly thrall : 

To One who suffered as on this day, 
And began our sins to purge away : 

To Him who hath promised to heed our cry, 
And a troubled heart to purify. 

And I feel that the gall will ever grow less, 
Till I see His face in righteousness. 

And now my soul is filled with cheer 

For the march of a bright and Happy New Year 

As years roll on, whether sun doth shine 
Or clouds overcast, I will never repine; 

For I know, when the race of Time is run, 
I shall enter a realm of Eternal Sun. 



Time is exactly what we make it ; in the 
hands of the foolish, a curse ; in the hands of 
the wise, a preparation for life eternal ; in the 
hands of the foolish, a preparation for the con- 
demnation that is everlasting. To you it is 
much ; to your neighbor it is naught. He is as 
anxious to throw it away as you (we hope) are 
anxious to cultivate it to the greatest advantage. 
Ah, if all of us did but know what it is, what it 
might be, how we should watch over every grain 
in the hour-glass ! How great would be our ac- 
tivity, how solicitous our labor, how profound our 



TIME. 145 

consciousness of duty ! How we should aspire to 
avail ourselves of each passing moment! How 
keen would be our regret if conscience could 
speak to us of days wasted and opportunities 
neglected ! 

In commenting on the importance of thrift in 
regard to time, it would be easy to lay down a 
few practical and familiar rules for the benefit of 
the young adventurer in life's chequered career. 
As for instance : — 

One thing at a time. 

Do at once what ought to be done at once. 

Never put off till to-morrow what ought to be 
done to-day. 

Never leave to another that which you can 
do yourself. 

More haste, worse speed. 

Stay a little that we may make an end the 
sooner. 

But more is to be learned from example than 
precept ; and the lives of great men ; or of men 
good and great, will prove of higher and more 
lasting value to the student than the most preci- 
ous fragments of proverbial philosophy. Show 
me a man who has attained to eminence, or ex- 
cellence, and you show me a man who has econ- 
omized his time. Show me a man who has ben- 
efited the world by his wisdom, or his country by 
his patriotism, or his neighborhood by his philan- 
thropy, and you show me a man who has made 
the best of every minute. In business, the men 



14G IDEALS OF LIFE. 

who have attained success are the men who 
have known the importance of method, the men 
who have appreciated the potentiality of time. — 
Adams. 

Thrift of time will repay you in after-life with 
a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine 
dreams ; while the waste of it will make you 
dwindle, alike in intellectual and moral stature, 
beyond your darkest reckonings. — Gladstone. 

Time is the most indefinable yet paradoxical 
of things : the past is gone, the future is not 
come, and the present becomes the past even 
while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash 
of lightning, at once exists and expires. — Time is 
the measurer of all things, but is itself immeas- 
urable, and the grand discloser of all things, but 
is itself undisclosed. Like space, it is incompre- 
hensible, because it has no limit, and it would be 
still more so if it had. It is more obscure in 
its source than the Nile, and in its termination 
than the Niger ; and advances like the slowest, 
but retreats like the swiftest torrent. It gives 
wings of lightning to pleasure, but feet of lead 
to pain, and lends expectation a curb, but enjoy- 
ment a spur. It robs Beauty of her charms, to 
bestow them on the picture, and builds a monu- 
ment to merit, but denies it a house: it is- the 
transient and deceitful flatterer of falsehood, but 
the tried and final friend of truth. Time is the 
most subtle yet the most insatiable of depreda- 
tors, and by appearing to take nothing, is per- 



TIME. 147 

mitted to take all, nor can it be satisfied until 
it has stolen the world from us, and us from the 
world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all 
things by flight ; and although it is the present 
ally, it will be the future conquerer, of death. 
Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambi- 
tion, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salu- 
tary counsellor of the wise, bringing all they 
dread to the one, and all they desire to the 
other ; but, like Cassandra, it warns us with a 
voice that even the sagest discredit too long, 
and the silliest believe too late. Wisdom walks 
before it, opportunity with it, and repentance be- 
hind it : he that has made it his friend will have 
little to fear from his enemies, but he that hath 
made it his enemy will have little to hope from 
his friends. — Colton. 

Dost thou love life? Then waste not time, 
for time is the stuff that life is made of. — Dr. 
Franklin. 

Time is painted with a lock before, and bald 
behind, signifying thereby that we must take time 
by the forelock ; for, when it is once past, there 
is no recalling it. — Swift. 



148 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



The things which are seen are temporal ; but the things which are 
not seen are eternal. — I Cor. iv. 18. 



TERNITY! Eternity! 
How wonderful Thou art, 
Wide as the Sea of Deity, 
And narrow as a heart ! 

The pulses of Eternity 

Are throbbing everywhere : 

Time holds Eternity in fee, 
And thus becomes so fair. 

Each moment is Eternity, 

Mother of mighty years, 
Whose chariot is Infinity, 

Whose steeds are smiles and tears. 

Eternity ! Eternity ! 

The Present, Future, Past, 
Forever are but one to Thee, — 

Thou art the First, the Last. 

All life contains Eternity, 

Where sight through truth abounds ; 
Clothed, clothed with Christ's humility, 

I see His pleading wounds. 



ETERNITY. 149 

Illumined by Eternity, 

How very new they are, 
Those wounds as of Humanity, 

No more, no more afar ! 

The mansion of Eternity 

Is built in every breath; 
And into it despairingly 

Look the great eyes of Death. 

Eternity ! Eternity ! 

How prodigal Thou art, 
Calm, uncreated Mystery. 

The Whole in every part! 



It is not by our feet or change of place that 
we leave Thee, or return to Thee. Nor did that 
younger son of Thine look out for horses or 
chariots, or ships, and fly with visible wings, or 
journey by the motion of his limbs, that he might 
in a far country waste in riotous living all Thou 
gavest at his departure. A loving Father Thou 
wert when Thou gavest ; but more loving unto 
him wert Thou when he returned empty. . . . 

We forget that Thou art everywhere, whom 
no place encompasseth ! that Thou alone art near 
even to those that remove far from Thee. O 
Lord, help us to turn and seek Thee ; for not as 
we have forsaken our Creator hast Thou for- 
saken Thy creation. . . . 

Our good only lives with Thee ; when we 



150 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

turn away from Thee we are perverted. Let us, 
then, O Lord, return, that we may not be over- 
turned ; because with Thee good lives without 
any decay, for Thou art good ; nor need we fear 
lest there be no place whither to return, because 
we fell from it ; for our mansion — Thy Eternity — 
fell not when we left Thee. — St. Augustine. 

In my solitary and retired imagination, I re- 
member that I am not alone, and therefore for- 
get not to contemplate Him and His attributes 
who is ever with me, especially those two mighty 
ones, His wisdom and eternity: with the one I 
recreate, with the other I confound my under- 
standing ; for who can speak of eternity without 
a solecism, or think thereof without an ecs- 
tacy ? . . . 

St. Peter speaks modestly, when he saith, a 
thousand years to God are but as one day ; for 
to speak like a philosopher, those continued in- 
stances of time which flow into a thousand years, 
make not to Him one moment: what to us is to 
come, to His eternity is present, His whole dura- 
tion being but one permanent point, without suc- 
cession, parts, flux or division. — Sir Thomas 
Browne.. 



8*v-3<rf*S- 



Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good 
works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. — St. Matthew v. 16. 

Every man has two educations, — one which he receives from others, 
end one, more important, which he gives himself. — Gibbon. 

Be what nature intended you for and you will succeed; be anything 
else and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. 

— Sidney Smith. 

The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise in solitary 
places. — Sir Arthur Helps. 

I never was anything, dearest, till I knew you; and I have been a 
better, happier, and more prosperous man ever since. Lay by that truth 
in lavender, sweetest, and remind me of it when I fail. 

— Hood (to his wife). 

The paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections. 

— Washington Irving. 

The body has its rights and it will have them. They cannot be 
trampled upon or slighted without peril. The body ought to be the soul's 
best friend, and cordial, dutiful helpmate. — Hare Brothers. 

(152) 



it* 



I2RO bring the man to light, 
**** And make his beauty shine: 
To form him by the rule of right, 
The Decalogue divine. 

To sow the fertile mind 

While spring is in its prime, 

That peaceful autumn days may find 
A harvest-home sublime. 

To build the mighty fort 
When youth is in its glow, 

Whose faithful sentinels report 
And challenge every foe. 

To marshal all the powers 
Whose roots are in the soul, 

To conquer in this world of ours, 
In armor bright and whole. 



I consider a human soul without education like 
marble in the quarry, which shows none of its in- 
11 ( 153 ) 



154 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

herent beauties until the skill of the polisher 
fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and 
discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein 
that runs through the body of it. Education, after 
the same manner, when it works upon a noble 
mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and 
perfection, which without such helps are never able 
to make their appearance. 

If my reader will give me leave to change the 
allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use of 
the same instance to illustrate the force of educa- 
tion, which Aristotle has brought to explain 
his doctrine of substantial forms, when he tells us 
that a statue lies hid in a block of marble, and 
that the art of the statuary only clears away the 
superfluous matter and removes the rubbish. The 
figure is in the stone, the sculptor only finds it. 
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education 
is to the human soul. The philosopher, the saint, 
the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very 
often lie hid and concealed in a plebian, which a 
proper education might have disinterred, and have 
brought to light. — Addison. 

The fruits of the earth do not more obviously 
require labor and cultivation to prepare them for 
our use and subsistence, than our faculties demand 
instruction and regulation in order to qualify us 
to become upright and valuable members of so- 
ciety, useful to others, or happy in ourselves. — 
Barrow. 

Education may be compared to the grafting of 



EDUCATION. 155 

a tree. Every gardner knows that the younger 
the wilding-stock is that is to be grafted, the 
easier and the more effectual is the operation, 
because, then, one scion put on just above the 
root will become the main stem of the tree, and 
all the branches it puts forth will be of the right 
sort. When, on the other hand, a tree is to be 
grafted at a considerable age (which may be very 
successfully done), you have to put on twenty or 
thirty grafts on the several branches ; and after- 
wards you will have to be watching from time to 
time for the wilding-shoots which the stock will be 
putting forth, and pruning them off. And even so, 
one whose character is to be reformed at mature 
age will find it necessary not merely to implant a 
right principle once for all, but also to bestow a 
distinct attention on the correction of this, that, 
and the other bad habit. . . . But it must not 
be forgotten that education resembles the graft- 
ing of a tree in this point also, that there must 
be some affinity between the stock and the graft, 
though a very important practical difference may 
exist ; for example, between a worthless crab and 
a fine apple. Even so, the new nature, as it may 
be called, superinduced by education, must always 
retain some relation to the original one, though 
differing in most important points. You cannot, 
by any kind of artificial training, make any thing 
of any one, and obliterate all trace of the natural 
character. Those who hold that this is possible, 
and attempt to effect it, resemble Virgil, who 



156 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

(whether in ignorance or, as some think, by way 
of "poetical license") talks of grafting an oak 
on an elm. — Whately. 

Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a 
child's mind by inculcating any opinions before it 
had come to years of discretion to choose for 
itself. I showed him my garden, and told him it 
was my botanical garden. " How so ? " said he ; 
" it is covered with weeds." " Oh," I replied, 
" that is only because it has not yet come to its 
age of discretion and choice. The weeds, you 
see, have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought 
it unfair in me to prejudice the soil towards 
roses and strawberries." — Coleridge. 

In one of the notes to a former publication I 
have quoted an old writer, who observes that 
"we fatten a sheep with grass, not in order to 
obtain a crop of hay from his back, but in the 
hope that he will feed us with mutton and clothe 
us with wool." We may apply this to the 
sciences : we teach a young man algebra, the 
mathematics, and logic, not that he should take 
his equations and his parallelograms into West- 
minster Hall, and bring his ten predicaments to 
the House of Commons, but that he should bring 
a mind to both these places so well stored with 
the sound principles of truth and reason as not 
to be deceived by the chicanery of the bar nor 
the sophistry of the senate. The acquirements 
of science may be termed the armor of the mind; 
but that armor would be worse than useless, 



EDUCATION. 157 

that cost all we had, and left us nothing to de- 
fend. — Colton. 

Interesting conversation with Mr. S. on educa- 
tion. Astonishment and grief at the folly, espe- 
cially in times like the present, of those parents 
who totally forget, in the formation of their chil- 
dren's habits, to inspire that vigorous indepen- 
dence which acknowledges the smallest possible 
number of wants, and so avoids or triumphs over 
the negation of a thousand indulgences, by al- 
ways having been taught and accustomed to do 
without them. " How many things," said Socra- 
tes, " I do not want ! " — John Foster. 

There have been periods when the country 
heard with dismay that " The soldier was abroad." 
That is not the case now. Let the soldier be 
abroad : in the present age he can do nothing. 
There is another person abroad, — a less impor- 
tant person in the eyes of some, an insignificant 
person, whose labors have tended to produce this 
state of things. The schoolmaster is abroad ! 
And I trust more to him, armed with his primer, 
than I do the soldier in full military array, for 
upholding and extending the liberties of his coun- 
try. — Lord Brougham. 

I say, therefore, that the education of the peo- 
ple is not only a means, but the best means, of 
obtaining that which all allow to be a chief end 
of government; and, if this be so, it passes my 
faculties to understand how any man can gravely 
contend that government has nothing to do with 
the education of the people. 



158 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

My confidence in my judgment is strength- 
ened when I recollect that I hold that opinion in 
common with all the greatest lawgivers, statesmen 
and political philosophers of all nations and ages, 
with all the most illustrious champions of civil 
and spiritual freedom, and especially with those 
men whose names were once held in the highest 
veneration by the Protestant Dissenters of Eng- 
land. I might cite many of the most venerable 
names of the Old World; but I would rather cite 
the example of that country which the supporters 
of the Voluntary System here are always recom- 
mending to us as a pattern. Go back to the 
days when the little society which has expanded 
into the opulent and enlightened commonwealth 
of Massachusetts began to exist. Our modern 
Dissenters will scarcely, I think, venture to speak 
contumeliously of those Puritans whose spirit 
Land and his High Commission Court could not 
subdue, of those Puritans who were willing to 
leave home and kindred, and all the comforts and 
refinements of civilized life, to cross the ocean, 
to fix their abode in forests among wild beasts 
and wild men, rather than commit the sin of per- 
forming in the house of God one gesture which 
they believed to be displeasing to Him. Did 
those brave exiles think it inconsistent with civil 
or religious freedom that the State should take 
charge of the education of the people ? No, sir; 
one of the earliest laws enacted by the Puritan 
colonists was that every township, as soon as the 



EDUCATION. 159 

Lord had increased it to fifty houses, should ap- 
point one to teach all children to read and write, 
and that every township of a hundred houses 
should set up a grammar school. Nor have the 
descendants of those who made this law ever 
ceased to hold that the public authorities were 
bound to provide the means of public instruction. 
Nor is this doctrine confined to New England. 
"Educate the people" was the first admonition 
addressed by Penn to the colony which he 
founded. " Educate the people " was the legacy 
of Washington to the nation which he had saved. 
" Educate the people " was the unceasing exhort- 
ation of Jefferson : and I quote Jefferson with 
peculiar pleasure, because of all the eminent men 
that have ever lived, Adam Smith himself not ex- 
cepted, Jefferson was the one who most abhorred 
everything like meddling on the part of govern- 
ments. Yet the chief business of his later years 
was to establish a good system of State educa- 
tion in Virginia. — Lord Macauly. 

Costly apparatus and splendid cabinets have 
no magical power to make scholars. As a man 
is in all circumstances, under God, the master of 
his own fortune, so is he the maker of his own 
mind. The Creator has so constituted the human 
intellect that it can only grow by its own action : 
it will certainly and necessarily grow. Every man 
must therefore educate himself. His books and 
teacher are but helps ; the work is his. A man 
is not educated until he has the ability to sum- 



160 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

mon, in an emergency, his mental powers in vig- 
orous exercise to effect its proposed object. It is 
not the man who has seen the most, or read the 
most, who can do this ; such an one is in danger 
of being borne down, like a beast of burden, by 
an overloaded mass of other men's thoughts. 
Nor is it the man who can boast merely of na- 
tive vigor and capacity. The greatest of all war- 
riors who went to the siege of Troy had not the 
pre - eminence because nature had given him 
strength and he carried the largest bow ; but 
because self- discipline had taught him how to 
bend it. — Daniel Webster. 



ttftdprs. 



ITRHOU canst not live in isolation, 
^ A hermit to the world unknown, 
And have no part in procreation ; 

For something, surely, thou hast sown. 

Dost know a cowardly withdrawal 

Becomes a factor of the age, 
A most unsoldierly bestowal 

On those who have life's war to wage ? 



TEACHERS. 161 

Without thy choice, thou art a teacher 
Appointed in this earthly school: 

Seek thou for wisdom and beseech her 
Thy lessons may abide her rule. 

For weal or woe, thy life forever 
Goes flowing down the thirsty years, 

A portion of the mighty river 

Which in the world's new life appears. 

It knows no pause or interruption, 
Thy drop of sweetness or of gall, 

Until the Day of Incorruption 
When God becometh all in all ! 



No human being can come into this world 
without increasing or diminishing the sum total of 
human happiness, not only of the present, but of 
every subsequent age of humanity. No one can 
detach himself from this connection. There is no 
sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche 
along the disc of non-existence, to which he can 
retreat from his relations to others, where he can 
withdraw the influence of his existence upon the 
moral destiny of the world ; everywhere his pres- 
ence or absence will be felt, — everywhere he will 
have companions who will be the better or worse 
for his influence. It is an old saying, and one of 
fearful and fathomless import, that we are form- 
ing characters for eternity. Forming characters ! 
Whose ? our own or others ? Both ; and in that 



1(32 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of 
our existence. Who is sufficient for the thought ? 
Thousands of my fellow-beings will yearly enter 
eternity with characters differing from those they 
have carried thither had I never lived. The sun- 
light of that world will reveal my finger-marks 
in their primary formations, and in their succes- 
sive strata of thought and life. — Elihu Burritt. 

Every man is a missionary now and forever, 
for good or for evil, whether he intends or de- 
signs it or not. He may be a blot, radiating his 
dark influence outward to the very circumference 
of society ; or he may be a blessing, spreading 
benediction over the length and breadth of the 
world: but a blank he cannot be. There are no 
moral blanks ; there are no neutral characters. 
We are either the sower that sows and corrupts. 
or the light that splendidly illuminates, and the 
salt that silendy operates ; but heing dead or alive, 
every man speaks. — Dr. Chalmers. 

His very presence — says the biographer of Dr. 
Arnold of Rugby — seemed to create a new spring 
of health and vigor within his pupils, and to give 
to life an interest and elevation which remained 
with them long after they had left him ; and 
dwelt so habitually in their thoughts as a living 
image, that, when death had taken him away, the 
bond appeared to be unbroken, and the sense of 
separation almost lost in the still deeper sense 
of life and a union undestructable. — Dean Stanley. 

Washington — wrote one who saw him only 



TEACHERS. 163 

once — sank into his tomb before any little cele- 
brity had attached to my name. I passed before 
him as the most unknown of beings. He was in 
all his glory — I in the depth of my obscurity. 
My name dwelt probably not a whole day in his 
memory. Happy, however, was I that his looks 
were cast upon me. I have felt warmed for it 
all the rest of my life. There is a virtue even in 
the looks of a great man. — Chateaubriand. 

That which is born of evil begets evil ; that 
which is born of valor and honor teaches valor 
and honor. — Ruskin. 

It is a pity that, commonly, more care is had, 
yea, and that among very wise men, to find out 
rather a cunning man for their horse, than a cun- 
ning man for their children. They say nay in 
word, but they do so in deed. For to the one they 
will gladly give a stipend of two hundred crowns 
by year, and loth to offer to the other two hund- 
red shillings. God, that sitteth in heaven, laugheth 
their choice to scorn, and rewardeth their liberal- 
ity as it should, for he suffereth them to have tame 
and well-ordered horses, but wild and unfortunate 
children ; and, therefore, in the end, they find 
more pleasure in their horse than comfort in their 
children. — Asciiam. 

There is no office higher than that of a teacher 
of youth, for there is nothing on earth so preci- 
ous as the mind, soul, character of the child. No 
office should be regarded with greater respect. 
The first minds in the community should be en- 



164 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

couraged to assume it. Parents should do all but 
impoverish themselves to induce such to become 
the guardians and guides of their children. To 
this good, all their show and luxury should be 
sacrificed. Here they should be lavish, whilst they 
straiten themselves in everything else. They should 
wear the cheapest clothes, live on the plainest 
food, if they can in no other way secure to their 
families the best instruction. They should have no 
anxiety to accumulate property for their children* 
provided they can place them under influence 
which will awaken their faculties, inspire them with 
pure and high principles, and fit them to bear a 
manly, useful, and honorable part in the world. 
No language can express the cruelty or folly of 
that economy which, to leave a fortune to a child, 
starves his intellect, impoverishes his heart. There 
should be no economy in education. Money 
should never be weighed against the soul of a 
child. It should be poured out like water for the 
child's intellectual and moral life. 

Parents should seek an educator for the young 
of their families who will become to them a hearty 
and efficient friend, counsellor, coadjutor, in their 
work. If their circumstances will allow it, they 
should so limit the school that the instructor may 
know intimately every child, may become the 
friend of each, and may converse frequently with 
them in regard to each. He should be worthy 
of their confidence, should find their doors always 
open, should be among their most welcome guests, 



BOOKS. 165 

and should study with them the discipline which 
the peculiarities of each pupil may require. He 
should give the parents warning of the least ob- 
liquity of mind which he discovers at school, should 
receive in return their suggestions as to the inju- 
diciousness of his own methods in regard to one 
or another child, and should concert with them 
the means of arresting every evil at its first mani- 
festation. Such is the teacher we need, and his 
value cannot be paid in gold. — Channing. 



|TO cheer me with their blessed looks, 
*** Friend after friend appears, 
Those dear companions in my books, 
The children of all years. 

I think the thoughts which once they thought, 

And others gather fast ; 
Until around me, all unsought, 

There is a host so vast. 

And all are come as ministers 

Of strength and life and joy; 
With whom, the fair young comforters, 

I am again a boy. 



166 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And Heaven once more is very near, 

Almost within my reach ; 
And silence — silence is so dear, 

Surpassing silver speech ! 



I have friends whose society is extremely 
agreeable to me : they are of all ages, and of 
every country. They have distinguished them- 
selves both in the cabinet and in the field, and 
obtained high honors for their knowledge of the 
sciences. It is easy to gain access to them ; for 
they are always at my service, and I admit them 
to my company, and dismiss them from it, when- 
ever I please. They are never troublesome, but 
immediately answer every question I ask them. 
Some relate to me the events of past ages, while 
others reveal to me the secrets of nature. Some 
teach me how to live, and others how to die. 
Some, by their vivacity, drive away my cares and 
exhilarate my spirits, while others give fortitude 
to my mind, and teach me the important lesson 
how to restrain my desires and depend wholly 
on myself. They open to me, in short, the vari- 
ous avenues of all the arts and sciences, and 
upon their information I safely rely in all emer- 
gencies. In return for all these services they 
only ask me to accommodate them with a con- 
venient chamber in some corner of my humble 
habitation, where they may repose in peace : for 
these friends are' more delighted by the tran- 



BOOKS. 167 

quility of retirement than with the tumults of so- 
ciety. — Petrarch. 

For books are not absolutely dead things, but 
do contain a potency of life in them, to be as 
active as that soul whose progeny they are ; nay, 
they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy 
and extraction of that living intellect that bred 
them. I know they are as lively, and as vigor- 
ously productive, as those fabulous dragons' 
teeth ; and, being sown up and down, may 
chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on 
the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good 
almost kill a man as kill a good book : who kills 
a man kills a reasonable creature, — God's image ; 
but he who destroys a good book kills reason 
itself, — kills the image of God, as it were, in the 
eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; 
but a good book is the precious life-blood of a 
master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on pur- 
pose to a life beyond life. — Milton. 

Except a living man there is nothing more 
wonderful than a book ! — a message to us from 
the dead, — from human souls whom we never 
saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away; 
and yet these, in those little sheets of paper, 
speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach us, com- 
fort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. 
. . . I say we ought to reverence books, to 
look at them as useful and mighty things. If 
they are good and true, whether they are about 
religion or politics, farming, trade, or medicine, 



168 IDEALS OF LIFE, 

they are the message of Christ, the maker of all 
things, the teacher of truth. — Charles Kingsley. 

Were I to pray for a taste which should stand 
me in stead under every variety of circumstances, 
and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness 
to me during life, and a shield against its ills, 
however things might go amiss, and the world 
frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. 
Give a man this taste, and the means of grati- 
fying it, and you can hardly fail of making him 
a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his 
hands a most perverse selection of Books. You 
place him in contact with the best society in 
every period of history, — with the wisest, the ten- 
derest, the bravest, and the purest characters who 
have adorned humanity. You make him a deni- 
zen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. 
The world has been created for him. — Sir John 
Herschel. 

Books are the food of youth, the delight of 
old age ; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge 
and comfort of adversity ; a delight at home, and 
no hindrance abroad ; companions by night, in 
travelling, in the country. — Cicero. 

To divert, at any time, a troublesome fancy, 
run to thy Books. They presently fix thee to 
them, and drive the other out of thy thoughts. 
They always receive thee with the same kind- 
ness — Thomas Fuller. 

Without books, God is silent, justice dormant, 
natural science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters 



BOOKS. 169 

dumb, and all things involved in Cimmerian dark- 
ness. — Bartholin. 

The book of Life is the tabernacle wherein the 
treasure of wisdom is to be found. The truth of 
voice perishes with the sound; truth latent in the 
mind is hidden wisdom and invisible treasure ; 
but the truth which illuminates books desires to 
manifest itself to every disciplinable sense. Let 
us consider how great a commodity of doctrine 
exists in books, — how easily, how secretly, how 
safely, they expose the nakedness of human ig- 
norance without putting it to shame. These are 
the masters that instruct us without rods and 
ferules, without harsh words and anger, without 
clothes or money. If you approach them, they 
are not asleep ; if, investigating, you interrogate 
them, they conceal nothing ; if you mistake them, 
they never grumble ; if you are ignorant; they 
cannot laugh at you. — Richard de Bury. 

The great and good do not die, even in this 
world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk 
abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an in- 
tellect to which one still listens. Hence we ever 
remain under the influence of the great men of 
old: 

" The dead but sceptred sovrans, who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns." 

The imperial intellects of the world are as 
much alive now as they were ages ago. Homer 
still lives ; and though his personal history is 
hidden in the mists of antiquity, his poems are 

12 



170 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

as fresh to-day as if they had been newly writ- 
ten. Plato still teaches his transcendent philoso- 
phy; Horace, Virgil, and Dante still sing as when 
they lived ; Shakspeare is not dead : his body 
was buried in 1616, but his mind is as much 
alive in England now, and his thoughts as far- 
reaching, as in the time of the Tudors. 

The humblest and poorest may enter the so- 
ciety of these great spirits without being thought 
intrusive. All who can read have got the eiitree. 
Would you laugh ? Cervantes or Rabelais will 
laugh with you. Do you grieve ? there is Thomas 
a Kempis or Jeremy Taylor to grieve with and 
console you. Always it is to books, and the 
spirits of great men embalmed in them, that we 
turn for entertainment, for instruction, and solace 
— in joy and in sorrow, as in prosperity and in 
adversity. — Smiles. 

A taste for books is the pleasure and glory 
of my life. I would not exchange it for the 
riches of the Indies. — Gibbon. 

Of all the things which man can do or make 
below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, 
and worthy are the things we call books,— Car- 
lyle. 



EXCO URA GEMENT. 171 



OR 

WHAT I CARRIED TO COLLEGE. 



,^K\UR old New England folks, you know, 
®^' Little favor to kissing were wont to show. 

It smacked, they thought, too much of Satan, 
Whose hook often has a pleasant bate on. 

And even as token of purity's passion, 
Sometimes, I think, it was out of fashion. 

So at least in the home my boyhood knew, 
And of other homes, no doubt, it was true. 

My grandsire and grandma, of the olden school, 
Were strict observers of the proper rule. 

And from New Year on to the end of December 
A kiss is something I do not remember. 

Yet I cannot say, in the joy of the present, 
The thought of those days is at all unpleasant. 

Grandma, with the cares of the household on her, 
In the morning smoked in the chimney corner. 

She hung the tea-kettle filled with water 
While still asleep was her youngest daughter. 



172 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Ah ! there were reasons, good and plenty, 
Why she should indulge that baby of twenty. 

The rest were all courted and married and flown, 
And that little birdie was left alone. 

Grandmother, when she had finished her smoking, 
Bustled about — she never went poking — 

And fried the pork and made the tea, 
And pricked the potatoes, if done to see ; 

While grandsire finished his chapter of snores, 
And uncle and I were doing the chores. 

When breakfast was over, the Bible was read, 
And a prayer I still remember said. 

The old folks in reverence bowed them down, 
As those who are mindful of cross and crown. 

My uncle and aunt who were unconverted, 
Their right to sit or stand asserted. 

And I, I fear, to example true, 
The part oi a heathen acted too. 

But there was always for me a glory, 
Morning and night, in that Bible - story. 

The heroes and saints of the olden time 
In beautiful vision moved sublime. 

I wondered much at the valor they had, 
And in wondering my soul was glad. 






ENCO UBA GEMENT. 173 

My wonderment, I can hardly tell, 

At the boldness Jacob showed at the well, 

In kissing Rachel, when meeting her first ; 
I wondered not into tears he burst. 

Had I been constrained to choose between 
That deed at the well and that after - scene 

When David and Goliah met, 

My heart on the fight would have certainly set. 

And yet there was much for a bashful boy 
To gather up and remember with joy. 

God bless my grandsire's simple heart 
Which made up in faith what it lacked in art, 

And led me on to the best of the knowledge 
Which years thereafter I carried to college. 

Tending the cattle stalled in the ' linter,' 
Going to school eight weeks in the winter ; 

Planting and hoeing potatoes and corn, 
Milking the cows at night and morn ; 

Spreading and raking the new - mown hay, 
Stowing it in the mow away ; 

Gathering apples and thinking of all 

The joys of Thanksgiving late in the fall — 

So ? passed I the years in such like scenes 
Until I had grown well into my teens. 



174 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And then, with many a dream in my heart, 
I struck for myself and a nobler part ; 

I hardly knew what, yet some higher good, 
Earning and spending as fast as I could ; 

Earning and spending in teaching and going 
To school, what time I to manhood was growing. 

My maiden aunt — and Providence 

Is approved in its blessed consequence — 

That baby of twenty to thirty had grown, 
And from the nest had not yet flown. 

And a childless aunt, my uncle's wife, 
Had come to gladden that quiet life. 

God bless them both, for they were ever 
The foremost to second my life's endeavor. 

Our aunts sometimes are almost mothers, 
Toiling and planning and spending for others. 

Aunt Hannah, the maiden, Aunt Emily, wife, 
How they labored to gird me for the strife, 

Cheering me on with words befitting, 
Doing my sewing and doing my knitting, 

And pressing upon me many a token 

Whose meaning was more than ever was spoken! 

At length the time for parting came — 
They both in heaven will have true fame ! 



ENCO URA QEMENT. 175 

They did not bid me good - bye at the stile ; 
They with me went through the woods a mile. 

It was the still September time, 

When the Autumn fruits were in their prime. 

Here and there a patch of crimson was seen 
Where the breath of the early frost had been. 

The songs of the birds were tender and sad, 
Yet I could not say they were not glad. 

Nature's soft and mellow undertone 

To a note like trust in the Father had grown. 

And that trust, I ween, in our hearts had sway, 
As on through the woods we wended our way. 

Meeting and parting fringe life below, — 
We parted — twenty years ago. 

My aunts turned back, and on went I, 
Striving my burning tears to dry. 

Almost a thousand miles away 

Was the Alma Mater I sought that day. 

To a voice I turned me on my track, 
And saw them both come running back. 

" Is something forgotten ?" soon stammered I ; 
And they, without a word in reply, 

Caught me in their arms, a great baby of twenty, 
And smothered me with kisses not too plenty. 



176 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Some joys I had known before that day, 
And many since have thronged my way ; 

But in all my seeking through forty years, 
In which rain-bow hopes have dried all tears, 

I have nothing found in the paths of knowledge, 
Surpassing those kisses I carried to college. 



Encouragement first bubbles out of the foun- 
tain in our own lives ; promoted, it may be, by 
unrecognized influences. And when the stream 
has fairly begun to flow, then come the tributaries, 
few at first, but constantly increasing. " God helps 
those who help themselves." So do His children, 
So do all the powers of Nature. It is the law of 
the universe. There is no encouragement from 
others, when there is no encouragement from 
ourselves. . 

Happening one day to see a gentleman ride 
by my father's house, (which was close by a pub- 
lic road,) I asked him what o'clock it then was ? 
He looked at his watch and told me. As he did 
that with so much good-nature, I begged him to 
show me the inside of his watch ; and, though he 
was an entire stranger, he immediately opened the 
watch, and put it in my hands. I saw the spring- 
box, with part of the chain round it; and asked 
him what it was that made it turn round ? He 
told me it was turned round by a steel spring 
within it. Having then never seen any other spring 



ENCO UEA GEMENT. 177 

than that of my father's gun-lock, I asked how a 
spring, within a box, could turn the box so often 
round, as to wind all the chain upon it? He an- 
swered that the spring was long and thin ; that 
one end of it was fastened to the axis of the box, 
and the other end to the inside of the box, 
that the axis was fixed, and the box was loose 
upon it. I told him I did not yet thoroughly 
understand the matter. " Well, my lad," says he, 
" take a long, thin piece of whalebone ; hold one 
end of it fast between your finger and thumb, 
and wind it round your finger; it will then en- 
deavor to unwind itself; and if you fix the other 
end of it to the inside of a small hoop, and 
leave it to itself, it will turn the hoop round 
and round, and wind up a thread tied to 
the outside of the hoop." I thanked the gentle- 
man and told him I understood the thing very 
well. I then tried to make a watch, with wooden 
wheels, and made the spring of whalebone. — Fer- 
guson. 

That stranger — says one who has written much 
about eminent men — might probably have read the 
above narrative as given to the world by Fergu- 
son, after the talents which this little incident 
probably contributed to develope had raised him 
from his obscurity to a distinguished place among 
the philosophers of his age ; and if he did know 
this, he must have felt that encouragement in 
well-doing, which a benevolent man may always 
gather, either from the positive effects of acts of 



178 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

kindness upon others, or their influence upon his 
own heart. Civility, charity, generosity, may some- 
times meet an ill-return ; but one person must be 
benefited by the exercise ; the kind heart has its 
own abundant reward, whatever be the gratitude 
of others. The case of Ferguson shows that the 
seed does not always fall on stony ground. It 
may appear somewhat absurd to dwell upon the 
benefit of a slight civility, which cost at most a 
few minutes of attention ; but it is really import- 
ant, that those who are easy in the world — who 
have all the advantages of wealth and knowledge 
at their command — should feel of how much value 
is the slightest encouragement and assistance to 
those who are toiling up the steep of emulation. 
Too often " the scoff of pride " is super-added to 
the "bar of poverty;" and thus it is, that many 
a one of the best talents, and the most generous 
feelings, 

" Has sunk into the grave unpitied and unknown," 

because the wealthy and powerful have never un- 
derstood the value of a helping hand to him who 
is struggling with fortune. — Craik. 



MBITION is the soul of progress, 
' The chief momentum of the world 



AMBITION. 179 

Which else were sluggish, torpid, jogless, 
A shell in which no life is curled. 

And though sometimes it be unruly, 
Like some high -mettled, fiery steed, 

Pursuing mighty schemes unduly, 
With self- consuming, hellish greed; 

Yet who, because of these abuses, 

Whose smoke and blackness cry, Beware! 

Would blot it out with all its uses 

Through which the world grows bright and 
fair? 

Give us ambition free from evil ; 

But if, dear Lord, that may not be, 
Then give us eyes to see the devil, 

And guard against his treachery. 



The soul, considered abstractedly from its pas- 
sions, is of a remiss and sedentary nature, slow 
in its resolves, and languishing in its executions. 
The use, therefore, of the passions is to stir it up 
and to put it upon action, to awaken the under- 
standing, to enforce the will, and to make the 
whole man more vigorous and attentive in the 
prosecution of his designs. As this is the end of 
the passions in general, so it is particularly of 
ambition, which pushes the soul to such actions 
as are apt to procure honor and reputation to 
the actor. But if we carry our reflections higher, 



180 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

we may discover farther ends of Providence in 
implanting this passion in mankind. 

It was necessary for the world that arts should 
be invented and improved, books written and 
transmitted to posterity, nations conquered and 
civilized. Now, since the proper and genuine 
motives to these, and the like great actions, 
would only influence virtuous minds, there would 
be but small improvements in the world were 
there not some common principle of action work- 
ing equally with all men : and such a principle 
is ambition, or a desire of fame, by which great 
endowments are not suffered to lie idle and use- 
less to the public, and many vicious men are 
over-reached, as it were, and engaged, contrary 
to their natural inclinations, in a glorious and 
laudable course of action. For we may further 
observe that men of the greatest abilities are 
most fired with ambition ; and that, on the con- 
trary, mean and narrow minds are the least actu- 
ated by it : whether it be that a man's sense of 
his own incapacities makes him despair of coming 
at fame, or that he has not enough range of 
thought to look out for any good which does 
not more immediately relate to his interest or 
conscience ; or that Providence, in the very frame 
of his soul, would not subject him to such a pas- 
sion as would be useless to the world and a tor- 
ment to himself. 

Were not this desire of fame very strong, the 
difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing 



AMBITION. ' 181 

it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a 
man from so vain a pursuit. — Addison. 

Although imitation is one of the great instru- 
ments used by Providence in bringing our nature 
towards its perfection, yet if men gave them- 
selves up to imitation entirely, and each followed 
the other, and so on in an eternal circle, it is 
easy to see that there never could be any im- 
provement amongst them. M-en must remain as 
brutes do, the same at the end that they are at 
this day, and that they were in the beginning 
of the world. To prevent this, God has implant- 
ed in man a sense of ambition, and a satisfaction 
arising from the contemplation of his excelling 
his fellows in something deemed valuable amongst 
them. It is this passion that drives men to all 
the ways we see in use of signalizing themselves, 
and that tends to make whatever excites in a 
man the idea of this distinction so very pleasant. 
It has been so strong as to make very miserable 
men take comfort that they were supreme in 
misery ; and certain it is that, where we cannot 
distinguish ourselves by something excellent, we 
begin to take a complacency in some singular 
infirmities, follies, or defects of one kind or other. 
— Burke. 

Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be 
sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he 
is he shall shoot higher than he who aims but at 
a bush. — Sir Philip Sidney. 

Indeed, no man knows, when he cuts off the 



182 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

incitements to a virtuous ambition and the just 
rewards of public service, what infinite mischief 
he may do his country through all generations. 
— Burke. 

It ought not to be the leading object of any 
one to become an eminent metaphysician, mathe- 
matician, or poet, but to render himself happy 
as an individual, and an agreeable, a respectable, 
and a useful member of society. — Dugald Stew- 
art. 



^7f?HE time to grapple with thy foe, 
^ That wild rebellious passion, 
And teach him in his overthrow 
To bide thy will and fashion. 

The time to catch the blessed light 
Which flashes out before thee, 

And issue from the grievous night 
Into the noon-tide glory. 

The time to seize on circumstance, 

And make of it a car 
On which to reach the bright advance 

Where grander treasures are. 



OPPORTUNITIES. 183 

The time to do the little things 
Which bring to thee and thine 

The sweet, perennial glimmerings 
Of happiness divine. 

The time to practice charity 

To which all times belong, 
And find a daily rarity 

To feed thy prayer and song. 



We sometimes read about "starting points in 
life," about " opportunities," and the necessity of 
being on the alert to avail ourselves of them. 
" Here is your chance," people say ; if you miss it, 
do not think that, like the swallow, it will reap- 
pear. We do not believe in chance, nor in start- 
ing-points, nor in opportunities, except in this 
sense, that at particular times our duty may be 
put before us in a special and conspicuous man- 
ner. " Seizing our opportunities," when carefully 
examined into, means nothing more than seizing 
an occasion of doing our duty. It is true, there- 
fore, to some extent, that to every man his oppor- 
tunity comes once in his life, and that if he per- 
mits it to glide by it will never return ; because 
it is certain that, if we once neglect any obvious 
duty, we shall never again be in a position to 
retrieve the laches. But do not let the reader sit 
down by the wayside and wait for his " opportun- 
ity," as for some miraculous boon to descend sud- 
denly and unexpectedly from the blue heavens 



184 WEALS OF LIFE. 

above him. Energy makes its own opportunities, 
because energy is always prompt to detect and 
ready to execute the work that has to be done. 
An engine-driver in charge of a crowded train saw 
lying across the rails at some distance in front of 
him a piece of timber which menaced his freight 
with wounds and death. Quick as thought he 
crept along the side of the engine, and leaning 
forward, by a supreme effort swung the log out of 
the way just as the iron wheels were upon it. 
He risked his life, but he did his duty. After- 
wards he was rewarded with promotion and hand- 
some gifts ; he had found his opportunity, his 
starting point, his chance. Yes ; but it was in 
doing his duty that he found it. " There are 
things," says Goethe, "which you do not notice 
only because you do not look at them ;" and so 
there are duties which we never recognize be- 
cause we will not look for them. It is related 
of a Mr. Godfrey, Governor of the Bank of Eng- 
land, that he made his appearance on the battle- 
field of Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington re- 
monstrated with him on the danger he was 
incurring. The gentleman answered that the Duke 
himself ran an equal risk. " Yes," said the Duke, 
but I am doing my duty. He had scarcely spoken 
when a ball struck the rash intruder dead. There 
was no glory in his death : it was a melancholy 
failure. He was outside the sphere of his duty. 
The opportunity at Waterloo was not for him, 
but for the Duke and the men who conquered 



EMPLOYMENT. ISo 

with him. "Though a battle," said Napoleon, 
" may last a whole day, there are generally some 
ten minutes in which its issue is practically de- 
cided." And so, though life may last fifty, or 
sixty, or seventy years, there is always a moment 
when our duty is clearly presented to us, and 
according as we seize, or neglect it, will be our suc- 
cess or failure. Only let us not be led astray 
by any fancied " opportunity," any imaginary 
" chance." Let us, like the Duke of Wellington, 
before we enter the thick of the fire, be sure that 
duty calls us thither. — Adams. 

Every one has a fair turn to be as great as 
he pleases. — Jeremy Collier. 

Opportunity has hair in front, behind she is 
bald : if you seize her by the forelock you may 
hold her, but, if suffered to escape, not Jupiter 
himself can catch her' again. — From the Latin. 

Opportunity is, in respect to time, in some 
sense, as time is in respect to eternity: it is the 
small moment, the exact point, the critical minute, 
on which every good work so much depends. — 
Sprat. 



Jcmjtfo^tttfti 



&RHE Father hitherto 
^ And His Eternal Son 



13 



186 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Work, work, and still have work to do 
With each successive sun. 

Work is the law of love 

Which rules the world below, 

Which rules the brighter world above, 
Through which like God we grow. 

And so I work in awe, 

As working with the Lord, 

Who in the mightiness of law 
Is everywhere abroad. 

Who in his heart rebels 

Has never ears to hear 
The morning and the evening bells 

In Heaven and Earth so clear. 



I don't believe — said the lord rector of Glas- 
gow University to the students of that institution 
— I don't believe that an unemployed man, how- 
ever amiable and otherwise respectable, ever was, 
or ever can be, really happy. As work is our 
life, show me what you can do, and I will show 
you what you are. I have spoken of love of 
one's work as the best preventive of merely low 
and vicious tastes. I will go further, and say that 
it is the best preservative against petty anxieties, 
and the annoyances that arise out of indulged 
self-love. Men have thought before now that 
they could take refuge from trouble and vexation 
by sheltering themselves, as it were, in a world 



EMPLOYMENT. 187 

of their own. The experiment has often been 
tried, and always with one result. You can not 
escape from anxiety and labor — it is the destiny 
of humanity. . . . Those who shirk from fac- 
ing trouble find that trouble comes to them. The 
indolent may contrive that he shall have less 
than his share of the world's work to do, but 
Nature, proportioning the instinct to the work, 
contrives that the little shall be much and hard 
to him. The man who has only himself to please 
finds, sooner or later, and probably sooner than 
later, that he has got a very hard master; and 
the excessive weakness which shrinks from re- 
sponsibility has its own punishment too, for where 
great interests are excluded little matters become 
great, and the same wear and tear of mind that 
might have been at least usefully and healthfully 
expended on the real business of life is often 
wasted in petty and imaginary vexations, such as 
breed and multiply in the unoccupied brain. — 
Lord Stanley. 

I cannot too much impress upon your mind 
— wrote the author of Waverly to his son Charles 
— that labor is the condition which God has im- 
posed on us in every station of life ; there is 
nothing worth having that can be had without it, 
from the bread which the peasant wins with the 
sweat of his brow to the sports by which the 
rich man must get rid of his ennui. ... As 
for knowledge, it can no more be planted in the 
human mind without labor than a field of wheat 



188 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

can be produced without the previous use of the 
plough. There is, indeed, this great difference, 
that chance or circumstances may so cause it that 
another shall reap what the farmer sows ; but no 
man can be deprived, whether by accident or mis- 
fortune, of the fruits of his own studies ; and the 
liberal and extended acquisitions of knowledge 
which he makes are all for his own use. Labor, 
therefore, my dear boy, and improve the time. 
In youth our steps are light, and our minds are 
ductile, and knowledge is easily laid up ; but if 
we neglect our spring, our summers will be use- 
less and contemptible, our harvest will be chaff, 
and the winter of our old age unrespected and 
desolate. — Sir Walter Scott. 

I myself — wrote a mother to her married 
daughter — when the children are gone out for a 
half-holiday, sometimes feel as stupid and as dull 
as an owl by daylight; but one must not yield to 
this, which happens more or less to all young 
wives. The best relief is work, engaged in with 
interest and diligence. Work, then, constantly 
and diligently, at something or other; for idleness 
is the devil's snare for small and great, as your 
grandfather says, and he says true. — Caroline 
Perthes. 

Exert your talents and distinguish yourself, 
and don't think of retiring from the world until 
the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a 
fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness, drives 
into a corner, and who does nothing when he is 



SPONGE, OB FOUNTAIN? 189 

there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I 
do, and bark. — Dr. Johnson. 



jl|tmtg% rrr Ijmmlam ? 

^^170 be forever drinking in, 
*** And never giving out a willing drop ? 
Or, having stores so bountiful within, 
In giving out to never stop ? 

Of all that have tried the selfish experiment, let 
one come forth and say he has succeeded. He 
that has made gold his idol — has it satisfied him ? 
He that has toiled in the fields of ambition — has 
he been repayed ? He that has ransacked every 
theatre of sensual enjoyment — is he content? 
Can any answer in the affirmative ? Not one. 
And when his conscience shall ask him, and ask 
it will, "Where are the hungry whom you gave 
meat ? The thirsty whom you gave drink ? The 
stranger whom you sheltered ? The naked whom 
you clothed ? The prisoner whom you visited ? 
The sick whom you ministered unto ?" how will 
he feel when he must answer, " I have done none 
of these things, — I thought only of myself!" — Dr. 
Johnson. 



190 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

There are those who live to do all the good 
they can to the bodies and to the souls of their 
fellow-men, to spread comfort and goodness and 
happiness around them, or, in a wider sphere, to 
promote the social, intellectual, moral and spiritual 
advancement of the human race. These are the 
elect, the true and noble heroes among men, who 
have entered into the inmost spirit of the Son of 
Man ; have eaten His flesh and drank His blood ; 
have imbibed from Him and become penetrated 
with that sublime enthusiasm of humanity, of which 
the Son of Man is the only perfect historical ex- 
ample. Blessed are such ; and great is their suc- 
cess in life, wherever they work or die. — C. S. 
Henry. 



Iftmtiu 



J| DWELLING where the Lord bestows 
^ — His presence as the life and light; 

And gives to poverty delight 
Which wealth without Him never knows. 



A little world, a world within, 

Where that confusion is unknown, 
Which was of old at Babel shown 

When first the earth was cursed with sin. 



|$>£ ? .-;-".-;• •-■.-—-: ' ■' -.jg*^ 





HOME. 191 

A " Paradise Regained " on earth, 
Where father, mother, husband, wife, 
And love's dear pledges are one life, 

God's music round the common hearth. 

A fountain whence forever pour 

Fair streams to gladden life beyond ; 
Whose healing waters correspond 

To heaven's perennial endless store. 

Who aims at such a home as this, 
Although perfection linger long, 
Attained but in his prayer and song, 

Enjoys the highest earthly bliss. 



If ever household affections and love are grace- 
ful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties 
that bind the wealthy and the proud at home may 
be forged on earth, but those which link the 
poor man to his humble hearth are of the true 
metal and bear the stamp of heaven. The man of 
high descent may love the halls and lands of his 
inheritance as a part of himself, as trophies of his 
birth and power; the poor man's attachment to 
the tenement he holds, which strangers have held 
before, and may to-morrow occupy again, has a 
worthier root, struck deep into a pure soil. His 
household gods are of flesh and blood, with no 
alloy of silver, gold, or precious scones ; he has no 
property but in the affections of his own heart; 
and when they endear bare floors and walls, de- 



192 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

spite of toil and scanty meals, that man has his 
love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes 
a solemn place. — Dickens. 

How many opportunities have we of giving de- 
ligt to those who live in our domestic circle, 
which would be lost before we could difuse it to 
those who are distant from us ! Our love, there- 
fore, our desire of giving happiness, our pleasure 
in having given it, are stronger within the limits 
of this sphere of daily and hourly intercourse than 
beyond it. Of those who are beyond this sphere* 
the individuals most familiar to us are those 
whose happiness we must always know better how 
to promote than the happiness of strangers, with 
whose particular habits and inclinations we are 
little if at all acquainted. — Dr. Brown. 

Are you not surprised to find how independ- 
ent of money peace of conscience is, and how 
much happiness can be condensed in the humblest 
home? A cottage will not hold the bulky fur- 
niture and sumptuous accomodations of a mansion ; 
but if God be there, a cottage will hold as much 
happiness as might stock a palace. — Dr. James 
Hamilton. 

Resolve — and tell your wife of your good re- 
solution. She will aid it all she can. Her step 
will be lighter and her hand will be busier all day, 
expecting the comfortable evening at home when 
you return. Household affairs will have been well 
attended to. A place for everything, and every- 
thing in its place, will, like- some good genius, 



CHILDHOOD. 193 

have made even a humble home the scene 
of neatness, arrangement, and taste. The table 
will be ready at the fireside. The loaf will be one 
of that order which says, by its appearance, you 
may come and cut again. The cups and saucers 
will be waiting for supplies. The kettle will be 
singing ; and the children, happy with fresh air 
and exercise, will be smiling in their glad antici- 
pation of that evening meal when father is at home, 
and of the pleasant reading afterwards. — Sir 
Arthur Helps. 



I. 



k 



I LITTLE child, not more than five, 
w-. j n ever y feature all alive, 
I did around my father fling 
The power and glory of a king. 

And loyalty as sweet and true 
As any monarch ever knew, 
Bore me exceeding great reward, 
My first ideal of the Lord. 

As disenchanting years went by 
With questionings of how and why, 



194 IDEALS OF LIF1C. 

And bore away so painfully 
The beautiful reality, — 

Doubtless, as in the outward eye, 
The vision faded — did it die ? 
It died as dies the golden morn 
When into noonday whiteness born — 

For always in the school of Christ 
The lower must be sacrificed — 
And so it went on climbing still 
And reached the fount whence came the 
rill,— 

The sweetness of the perfect Man 
Built on the old primeval plan, 
With sweetness of the perfect God 
Whose presence can by man be trod. 

n. 

A little child, not more than seven, 
As pure as when just out of heaven, 
Didst thou not see on earth a glory 
Thou hast not found in song or story? 

It was the light from heaven's portal, 
Too fair for tongue or pen of mortal, 
The memory of which is beauty 
On all the rugged ways of duty. 

But is it gone, that revelation, 

Now but a far-off consolation? 

If thou art one of God's true-hearted, 

Be sure it has not yet departed. 



CHILDHOOD. 195 

Though thou hast passed through many a 

wildwood, 
That wondrous glory of thy childhood 
Now shines within thee, pure and vernal, 
Because thy birthright is eternal. 

And though thy years be many a seven, 
Yet art thou very near to heaven, 
Whose light is everywhere a glory 
Unbuilded into song or story. 



A child is a man in a small letter, yet the 
best copy of Adam ; and he is happy whose 
small practice in the world can only write his 
character. He is Nature's fresh picture newly 
drawn in oil, which time and much handling dims 
and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper, un- 
scribbled with observations of 'the world, where- 
with at length it becomes a blurred note-book. 
He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, 
nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted 
with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of 
being wise, nor endures evils to come by foresee- 
ing them. He kisses and loves all, and when the 
smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. 
Nature and his parents alike dandle him, and 
entice him on with a bit of sugar to a draught 
of wormwood. He plays yet like a young pren- 
tice the first day, and is not come to his task of 
melancholy. All the language he speaks yet is 
tears, and they serve him well enough to ex- 



196 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

press his necessity. His hardest labor is his 
tongue, as if he were loth to use so deceitful 
an organ, and he is best company with it when 
he can but prattle. We laugh at his foolish 
sports, but his game is our earnest ; and his 
drums, rattles, and hobby - horses, but the em- 
blems and mockings of men's business. His 
father has writ him as his own little story, 
wherein he reads those days of his life which 
he cannot remember, and sighs to see what inno- 
cence he has outlived. He is the Christian's ex- 
ample, and the old man's relapse ; the one imi- 
tates his pureness, and the other falls into his 
simplicity. Could he put off his body with his 
little coat, he had got eternity without a burden 
and but exchanged one heaven for another. — 
Bishop Earle. 

All minds, even the dullest, remember the 
*days of their childhood; but all cannot bring 
back the indescribable brightness of that blessed 
season. They who would know what they once 
were, must not merely recollect, but they must 
imagine, the hills and valleys — if any such there 
were — in which their childhood played ; the tor- 
rents, the waterfalls, the lakes, the heather, the 
rocks, the heaven's imperial dome, the raven 
floating only a little lower than the eagle in the 
sky. To imagine what he then heard and saw, 
he must imagine his own nature. He must col- 
lect from many vanished hours the power of his 
untamed heart ; and he must, perhaps, transfuse 



PLIGHTED LOVE. 197 

also something of his maturer mind into those 
dreams of his former being, thus linking the past 
with the present by a continuous chain, which, 
though Often invisible, is never broken. So it is, 
too, with the calmer affections that have grown 
within the shelter of a roof. We do not merely 
remember, we imagine, our father's house, the 
fireside, all his features, then most living, now 
dead and buried, the very manner of his smile, 
every tone of his voice. We must combine, with 
all the passionate and plastic power of imagina- 
tion, the spirit of a thousand happy hours into 
one moment ; and we must invest with all that 
we ever felt to be venerable, such an image as 
alone can fill our filial hearts. It is thus that 
imagination, which first aided the growth of all 
our holiest and happiest affections, can preserve 
them to us unimpaired, — 

" For she can bring us back the dead 
Even ill the loveliest looks they wore." 

— Washington Irving. 

- >» e ■ 

J Ii$bh Jboa. 

?J| YEAR hath rolled 

^^ On a track of gold, 

Since first our vows we plighted ; 



193 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Yet it seems but a day 
Hath glided away, 
So bright is the love we lighted. 

This love we name, 

This virgin flame, 
O will it from clear to clearer 

Till the Jasper wall 

On our vision fall 
As we hasten from near to nearer ? 

Again thy yes, 

With its power to bless, 

Good faries to me deliver ; 
And I bid them return 
With a blessing I yearn 

To bestow on their mistress the giver. 



Love is a fire that, kindling its first embers in 
the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from 
a wandering spark out of another private heart, 
glows and enlarges until it warms and beams 
upon multitudes of men and women, upon the 
universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole 
world and nature with its generous flame. — 
Emerson. 

Love one human being purely and warmly, 
and you will love all. The - heart in this heaven, 
like the wandering sun, sees nothing, from the 
dewdrop to the ocean, but a mirror which it 
warms and fills. — Richter. 



PLIGHTED LOVE. 199 

Love doth seldom suffer itself to be confined 
by other matches than those of its own making. 
— Boyle. 

Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has 
many points in common therewith. I call it rather 
the discerning of the infinite in the finite, of the 
ideal made real. — Carlyle. 

Love, like fire, cannot subsist without continual 
movement; so soon as it ceases to hope and 
fear, it ceases to exist. — Rochefoucauld. 

Love is like a painter, who in drawing the pic- 
ture of a friend having a blemish in one eye, would 
picture only the other side of the face. — South. 

Love is better than spectacles to make every- 
thing seem great. — Sir Philip Sidney. 

Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it 
in good health is short-lived, and apt to have ague 
fits. — Erasmus. 

For the whole endeavor of both parties, dur- 
ing the time of courtship, is to hinder themselves 
from being known, and to disguise their natural 
temper, and real desires, in hypocritical imitation, 
studied compliance, and continued affectation. 
From the time that their love is avowed, neither 
sees the other but in a mask, and the cheat is 
managed often on both sides with so much art, 
and discovered afterwards with so much abrupt- 
ness, that each has reason to suspect that some 
transformation has happened on the wedding- 
night, and that, by a strange imposture, one has 
been courted and another married. 



200 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

I desire you, therefore, Mr. Rambler, to ques- 
tion all who shall hereafter come to you with 
matrimonial complaints, concerning their behavior 
in the time of courtship, and inform them that 
they are neither to wonder nor repine, when a 
contract begun with fraud has ended in disap- 
pointment. — Dr. Johnson. 

When a woman is deliberating with herself 
whom she shall choose of many near each other 
in other pretensions, certainly he of best under- 
standing is to be preferred. Life hangs heavily in 
the repeated conversation of one who has no im- 
agination to be fired at the several occasions and 
objects which come before him, or who cannot 
strike out of his own reflections new paths of 
pleasing discourse. — Sir Richard Steele. 

The advantages, as I was going to say, of 
sense, beauty, and riches, are what are certainly 
the chief motives to a prudent young woman of 
fortune for changing her condition ; but as she is 
to have her eye upon each of these, she is to ask 
herself whether the man who has the most of 
these recommendations in the lump is not the 
most desirable. He that has excellent talents, 
with a moderate estate, and an agreeable person, 
is preferable to him who is only rich, if it were 
only that good faculties may purchase riches ; 
but riches cannot purchase worthy endowments. 
I do not mean that wit, and a capacity to enter- 
tain, is what should be highly valued, except it is 
founded on good nature and humanity. There 



WEDDED LOVE. 201 

are many ingenious men whose abilities do little 
else but make themselves and those about them 
uneasy. — Sir. Richard Steele. 

Tom hinting at his dislike of some trifle his 
mistress had said, she asked him how he would 
talk to her after marriage if he talked at this 
rate before ? — Addison. 



thhth Jfowtt* 



JE)F all the blessed things below 
®^ To hint the joys above, 
There is not one our hearts may know 
So dear as mated love. 

It walks the garden of the Lord, 

It gives itself away : 
To give and think not of reward 

Is glory day by day. 

The sweetness of eternal June 

Is cradled in its flowers ; 
And hark! a stirring martial rune 

Goes sounding through its bowers : 

'The field which thou must conquer here 
Is dark and broad and long; 

14 



202 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And thou must gird thee with the cheer 
Which keeps the mighty strong. 

"Thou wast not meant for languid rest, 
Nor dowered for base repose : 
In action only art thou blest 
Until the battle's close ! " 

And though sometimes the shadows fall, 

And day is dark as night, 
It bows and drinks the cup of gall, 

But gives not up the fight. 

For One is in the union where 

The mine is ever thine, 
Whose presence keeps it brave and fair, 

A melody divine. 



Better than the best of friends is a good wife. 
Perhaps we should rather say that a good wife 
is the best of all friends. We hold it essential 
to a young man's success, whether his calling be 
that of a merchant or trader, priest, engineer, or 
lawyer, artist or man of letters, that he should 
marry well and marry early. The prejudice 
against early marriages seems to us to have 
originated in sordid motives. It is intimately 
connected with that selfishness, that love of out- 
ward show, and that luxurious indulgence which 
have corrupted our social system. It seems to 
be assumed that marriage must be deferred until 
the man has "sown his wild oats," in other words, 



WEDDED LOVE. 203 

has sullied his soul by contact with the whole 
circle of the world's pleasures, and the woman 
can be placed at the head of an expensive house- 
hold. Now we are convinced, from long obser- 
vation, that an early marriage is a young man's 
surest guarantee ol happiness. We are sure 
that it is his best security against temptation, and 
the most admirable incentive to honest and inde- 
pendent exertion that can be presented to him. 
To love a good woman is in itself a fine educa- 
tion : to marry her and work for her is in itself 
a source of the truest happiness. Early mar- 
riage sometimes turns out ill, and so do late 
marriages ; so do all marriages which are made 
in an unworthy spirit or for mean purposes, 
which are not marriages of heart and soul and 
mind, but " alliances " contracted for worldly rea- 
sons or no reasons at all. It is requisite that a 
man, in seeking a wife, should take at least as 
much thought as in seeking a friend ; should 
endeavor to know something of her temper, char- 
acter, and disposition ; should ascertain whether 
her nature will harmonize with his, and whether 
it be one which he can respect and admire. If 
it be unwise to choose a friend who falls below 
our own standard, much more unwise is it to 
choose a wife who cannot be our companion on 
terms of the fullest equality, who cannot share 
our thoughts, our aspirations, and our hopes. 

Supposing a young man to have met with a 
maiden to whom he can unreservedly trust his 



204 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

future happiness, we say that the sooner he 
makes her his wife the better for both of them. 
Let them spend in sweet and joyful union their 
early years of exertion and industry, and those 
early years will furnish them with pleasant mem- 
ories to be recalled in the autumn days of life, 
when the battle has been fought, and, let us hope, 
the victory won. It is a good thing for a hus- 
band and wife to have the same past to look 
back upon. Again, what can be more unfair 
than that a man who has expended his ripe man- 
hood in gross self-indulgence should offer his 
wasted, decayed, and battered nature to a young 
girl, with all the bloom of spring still upon her 
mind and heart? For it is to be observed that 
those who condemn early marriages condemn 
them only for the man and not for the woman. 
They do not say that a man of forty should 
marry a woman of the same age. No, indeed ; 
he is free to offer himself, with all his world- 
weary, exhausted heart and his "handsome settle- 
ments," to maidenhood in all its freshness and all 
its innocence ! In such a case there can seldom 
be any thorough sympathy, any heart-to-heart 
understanding, between husband and wife. Not 
only is the difference of years between them, but 
a past which they have not shared together ; ex- 
periences on the husband's side wholly unknown 
to the wife ; young hopes and aspirations on the 
wife's side at which the husband cannot even 
guess. Let him who would enter on the race of 



Wedded love. 205 

life with reasonable anticipations of success not 
neglect to secure at starting not only a good 
friend but a good wife ; he may haply dispense 
with the former, but for his soul's sake he can- 
not do without the latter. But then, he must 
first look upon marriage as a boon from God, 
to be gained from Him alone by earnest prayer, 
by intense repentance, and complete confession of 
youthful sins. " Man," says Charles Kingsley, 
"is a spirit animal, and, in communion with God's 
Spirit, has a right to believe that his affections 
are under that Spirit's guidance, and that when 
he finds in himself such an affection to any single 
woman as true married lovers describe theirs to 
be, he is bound (duty to parents and country 
allowing) to give himself up to his love in child- 
like simplicity and self-abandonment, and, at the 
same time, with solemn awe and self-humiliation 
at being thus re-admitted into the very garden of 
the Lord — 

" The Eden where the spirit and the flesh 
Are one again, and new-born souls walk free, 
And name in mystic language all things new, 
Naked and not ashamed." 

— Adams. 

Business does but lay waste the approaches 
to the heart, while marriage garrisons the for- 
tress. — Sir Henry Taylor. 

Matrimony hath something in it of nature, 
something of civility, something of divinity. — 
Bishop Hall. 

Marriage is an institution calculated for a con- 



206 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

stant scene of as much delight as our being is 
capable of. — Sir Richard Steele. 

Husbands must give to their wives love, main- 
tenance, duty, and the sweetness of conversation ; 
and wives must pay to them all they have or can, 
with the interest of obedience and reverence : 
and they must be complicated in affections and 
interest, that there be no distinction between 
them of mine and thine. — Jeremy Taylor. 



-G^©^9^- 



fljHbrat* 



KOME hither, come hither, my children five, 
^ And gather around the cheerful hearth ; 
And think of the Child forever alive, 

The Prince of all children in Heaven and Earth. 

Come hither, come hither, my daughters four, 
And tell me the tale of your sunny hearts : 

It is something, no doubt, I have heard before, 
For into a poem it daily starts. 

Come hither, come hither, my little son, 
And join in the story that must be told. 

His eye has a twinkle which tells of fun ; 

Will it cease, I wonder, what time he grows old ? 



CHILDREN. 207 

Now, Mamie, my eldest, what do you say ? 

I wait not the speech those eyes so well show. 
Don't blush ; 'tis no sin to the sweet maiden May, 

And love that is silent is strongest, we know. 

Well, Emma, I ween, has a tongue that can prove 
How many a thing can be told in a minute. 

" Yes, papa, and now when it speaks of my love 
Believe that for once it has something in it." 

The little witch Jessie now takes her part 
In the oft told story of fireside bliss; 

And while I am folding her close to my heart, 
She through my moustache finds the place for 
a kiss. 

Wee Rachel, the last of my girls, comes next. 

Her name makes her dearer than all the rest. 
I think of a Sunday I'll make her my text, 

And the sermon, I know, will be my best. 

Now Jamie has something to say, no doubt, 
For great is the love of an only son. 

He wiggles about and at last speaks out: 
" Papa, it's only a dog and a gun." 

An only son ? An only son ? 

And have I forgotten so soon the grace 
Which many a loving tribute won, 

The glow of another dear little face ? 

He does not answer my call to-night, 
Just as the other children do ; 



203 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

But still he replies with a gleam of light, 
As of one who remains forever true. 

Before his brother and sisters he, 

The dear little Archie, has gone to rest; 

He knoweth before us the things to be ; 
The Father appointeth what is best. 

His name was given the Daughter of Zion, 

Forever and forever to keep ; 
Now over his bed at night Orion 

Doth watch his sweet untroubled sleep. 

Come nearer, come nearer, my children five, 
And pray unto Heaven to keep you from harm 

Remember with me the dead is alive ; 

In the cradle of God he is safe and Warm. 



Tell me not of the trim, precisely - arranged 
homes where there are no children ; " where," as 
the good Germans have it, " the fly-traps always 
hang- straight on the wall ; " tell me not of the 
never-disturbed nights and days, of the tranquil, 
unanxious hearts, where children are not! I care 
not for these things. God sends children for an- 
other purpose than merely to keep up the race: 
— to enlarge our hearts, to make us unselfish, 
and full of kindly sympathies and affections ; to 
give our souls higher aims, and to call out all our 
faculties to extended enterprises and exertion ; to 
bring round our fireside bright faces and happy 
smiles, and loving, tender hearts. My soul blesses 



CHILDREN. 209 

the Great Father every day, that he has glad- 
dened the earth with little children. — Mary 
Howitt. 

A child's eyes ! those clear wells of undefiled 
thought ; what on earth can be more beautiful ! 
Full of hope, love, and curiosity, they meet your 
own. In prayer, how earnest ; in joy, how spark- 
ling; in sympathy, how tender! The man who 
never tried the companionship of a little child 
has carelessly passed by one of the great pleas- 
ures of life, as one passes a rare flower without 
plucking it or knowing its value. A child can- 
not understand you, you think : speak to it of 
the holy things of your religion, of your grief 
for the loss of a friend, of your love for some 
one you fear will not love in return: it will take, 
it is true, no measure or soundings of your 
thought ; it will not judge how much you should 
believe ; whether your grief is natural in propor- 
tion to your loss ; whether you are worthy or fit 
to attract the love which you seek; but its whole 
soul will incline to yours, and ingraft itself, as it 
were, on the feeling which is your feeling for the 
hour. — Hon. Mrs. Norton. 

In order to form the minds of children, the 
first thing to be done is to conquer their will. 
To inform the understanding is a work of time, 
and must, with children, proceed by slow degrees, 
as they are able to bear it ; but the subjecting 
must be done at once, and the sooner the better ; 
for, by neglecting timely correction, they will con- 



210 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

tract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are 
hardly ever conquered, and not without using 
such severity as* would be as painful to me as 
the child. In the esteem of the world they pass 
for kind and indulgent, whom I call cruel, pa- 
rents, who permit their children to get habits 
which they know must afterwards be broken, 
when the will of a child is subdued, and it is 
brought to revere and stand in awe of its pa- 
rents, then a great many childish follies and in- 
advertencies may be passed by. Some should 
be overlooked, and others mildly reproved; but 
no wilful transgression ought to be forgiven 
without such chastisement, less or more, as the 
nature and circumstances of the offence may re- 
quire. I insist upon conquering the will of chil- 
dren betimes, because this is the only strong and 
rational foundation of a religious education, with- 
out which both precept and example will be in- 
effectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then 
a child is capable of being governed by the rea- 
son and piety of its parents till its own under- 
standing comes to maturity, and the principles of 
religion have taken root in the mind. — Mrs. 
Wesley. 

In books designed for children there are two 
extremes that should be avoided. The one, that 
reference to religious principles in connection 
with matters too trifling and undignified, arising 
from a well-intentioned zeal, causing a forgetful- 
ness of the maxim whose notorious truth has 



WOMAN'S WORK. 211 

made it proverbial, " Too much familiarity breeds 
contempt." And the other is the contrary, and 
still more prevailing, extreme, arising from a de- 
sire to preserve a due reverence for religion, at 
the expense of its useful application in conduct. 
But a line may be drawn which will keep clear of 
both extremes. We should not exclude the as- 
sociation of things sacred with whatever are to 
ourselves trifling matters (for these little things are 
great to children), but what is viewed by them as 
trifling. Everything is great or small to the 
parties concerned. The private concerns of any 
obscure individual are very insignificant to the 
world at large, but they are of great importance 
to himself, and all worldly affairs must be small 
in the sight of the Most High ; but irreverent 
familiarity is engendered in the mind of any one, 
then, and then only, when things sacred are as- 
sociated with such as are, to him, insignificant 
things. — Whately. 



Oman's W 



1 



HE tender devotion of woman 
All fair of a heart that is human, 



212 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Becomes from its beautiful birth 
The loftiest thing of the earth. 

It purifies earth - lighted passions, 
It burns with an ardor that fashions 
And moulds to a higher resolve 
The hopes that so lowly revolve. 

It glows in the wife and the mother, 
A fire no disaster can smother, 
Remaining a symbol forever 
Of Love's everlasting endeavor. 

O blessed is he that has found it! 
Where, where is the plummet to sound it, 
The tender devotion of woman 
All pure of a heart that is human ! 



One good mother, said George Herbert, is 
worth a hundred school -masters. In the home 
she is " loadstone to all hearts, and loadstar to 
all eyes." Imitation of her is constant — imitation, 
which Bacon likens to a "globe of precepts." 
But example is far more than precept. It is in- 
struction in action. It is teaching without words, 
often exemplifying more than tongue can teach. 
In the face of bad example, the best of precepts 
are but of little avail. The example is followed, 
not the precepts. Indeed, precept at variance 
with practice is worse than useless, inasmuch as 
it only serves to teach the most cowardly of vices 
— hypocrisy. Even children are judges of con- 



WOMAN'S WORK. 213 

sistency, and the lessons of the parent who says 
one thing and does the opposite, are quickly 
seen through. The teaching of the friar was not 
worth much who preached the virtue of honesty 
with a stolen goose in his sleeve. 

By imitation of acts, the character becomes 
slowly and imperceptibly, but at length decidedly 
formed. The several acts may seem in them- 
selves trivial ; but so are the continuous acts of 
daily life. Like snow-flakes, they fall unperceived; 
each flake added to the pile produces no sensible 
change, and yet the accumulation of snow-flakes 
makes the avalanche. So do repeated acts, one 
following another, at length become consolidated 
in habit, determine the action of the human being 
for good or for evil, and, in a word, form the 
character. 

It is because the mother, far more than the 
father, influences the action and conduct of the 
child, that her good example is of so much 
greater importance in the home. It is easy to 
understand why this should be so. The home is 
the woman's domain — her kingdom, where she 
exercises entire control. Her power over the 
little subjects she rules there is absolute. They 
look up to her for everything. She is the exam- 
ple and model constantly before their eyes, whom 
they unconsciously observe and imitate. 

Cowley, speaking of the influence of early 
example, and ideas early implanted in the mind, 
compares them to letters cut in the bark of a 



214 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

young tree, which grow and widen with age. 
The impressions then made, howsoever slight 
they may seem, are never effaced. The ideas 
then implanted in the mind are like seeds 
dropped into the ground, which lie there and 
germinate for a time, afterwards springing up in 
acts and thoughts and habits. Thus the mother 

o 

lives again in her children. They unconsciously 
mould themselves after her manner, her speech, 
her conduct, and her method of life. Her habits 
become theirs ; and her character is visibly re- 
peated in them. 

This maternal love is the visible providence 
of our race. Its influence is constant and uni- 
versal. It begins with the education of the hu- 
man being at the outstart of life, and is pro- 
longed by virtue of the powerful influence which 
every good mother exercises over her children 
through life. When launched into the world, each 
to take part in its labors, anxieties, and trials, 
they still turn to their mother for consolation, if 
not for counsel, in their time of trouble and diffi- 
culty. The pure and good thoughts she has im- 
planted in their minds when children continue to 
grow up into good acts long after she is dead; 
and when there is nothing but a memory of her 
left, her children rise up and call her blessed. 

It is not saying too much to aver that the 
happiness or misery, the enlightenment or ignor- 
ance, the civilization or barbarism of the world, 
depends in a very high degree upon the exercise 



WOMAN'S WORK. 215 

of woman's power within her special kingdom of 
home. Indeed, Emerson says, broadly and truly, 
that " a sufficient measure of civilization is the 
influence of good women." Posterity may be 
said to be before us in the person of the child in 
the mother's lap. What that child will eventually 
become, mainly depends upon the training and 
example which he has received from his first and 
most influential educator. 

Woman, above all other educators, educates 
humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the 
heart of humanity ; he its judgment, she its feel- 
ing; he its strength, she its grace, ornament, and 
solace. Even the understanding of the best 
woman seems to work mainly through her affec- 
tions. And thus, though man may direct the in- 
tellect, woman cultivates the feelings, which 
mainly determine the character. While he fills 
the memory, she occupies the heart. She makes 
us love what he can only make us believe, and 
it is chiefly through her that we are enabled to 
arrive at virtue. 

The respective influences of the father and 
the mother on the training and development of 
character are remarkably illustrated in the life of 
St. Augustine. While Augustine's father, a poor 
freeman of Thagaste, proud of his son's abilities, 
endeavored to furnish his mind with the highest 
learning of the schools, and was extolled by the 
neighbors for the sacrifice he made with that 
object "beyond the ability of his means" — his 



216 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

mother, Monica, on the other hand, sought to 
lead her son's mind in the direction of the high- 
est good, and with pious care counselled him, 
entreated him, advised him to chastity, and 
amidst much anguish and tribulation, because of 
his wicked life, never ceased to pray for him 
until her prayers were heard and answered. 
Thus her love at last triumphed, and the patience 
and the goodness of the mother were rewarded, 
not only by the conversion of her gifted son, but 
also of her husband. Later in life, and after her 
husband's death, Monica, drawn by her affection, 
followed her son to Milan, to watch over him ; 
and there she died, when he was in his thirty- 
third year. But it was in the earlier period of 
his life that her example and instruction made 
the deepest impression upon his mind, and deter- 
mined his future character. 

There are many similar instances of early im- 
pressions made upon a child's mind, springing up 
into good acts late in life, after an intervening 
period of selfishness and vice. Parents may do 
all that they can to develop an upright and vir- 
tuous character in their children, and apparently 
in vain. It seems like bread cast upon the waters 
and lost. And yet sometimes it happens that 
long after the parents have gone to their rest 
— it may be twenty years or more — the good 
precept, the good example set before their sons 
and daughters in childhood, at length springs up 
and bears fruit. 



WOMAN'S WORK. 217 

One of the most remarkable of such instances 
was that of the Reverend John Newton, of Olney, 
the friend of Cowper, the poet. It was long sub- 
sequent to the death of both his parents, and 
after leading a vicious life as a youth and as a 
seaman, that he became suddenly awakened to a 
sense of his depravity ; and then it was that the 
lessons which his mother had given him when a 
child sprang up vividly in his memory. Her 
voice came to him as it were from the dead, and 
led him gently back to virtue, and goodness. 

Another instance is that of John Randolph, 
the American statesman, who once said : " I 
should have been an athiest if it had not been for 
one recollection — and that was the memory of the 
time when my departed mother used to take my 
little hand in hers, and cause me on my knees to 
say, ' Our Father which art in heaven !' " 

But such instances must on the whole, be re- 
garded as exceptional. As the character is biased 
in early life, so it generally remains, gradually 
assuming its permanent form as manhood is 
reached. " Live as long as you may," said Southey, 
"the first twenty years are the longest half of 
your life," and they are by far the most pregnant 
in consequence. When the worn-out slanderer 
and voluptuary, Dr. Wolcot, lay on his death-bed, 
one .of his friends asked if he could do anything 
to gratify him. " Yes," said the dying man, " give 
me back my youth." Give him but that, and he 
would repent — he would reform. But it was all 

15 



218 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

too late ! His life had become bound and en- 
thralled by the chains of habit. 

Gretry, the musical composer, thought so 
highly of the importance of woman as an edu- 
cator of character, that he described a good 
mother as " Nature's chef d'ceuvre." And he was 
right: for good mothers, far more than fathers, 
tend to the perpetual renovation of mankind, 
creating as they do the moral atmosphere of the 
home, which is the nutriment of man's moral be- 
ing, as the physical atmosphere is of his corporeal 
frame. By good temper, sauvity, and kindness, 
directed by intelligence, woman surrounds the in- 
dwellers with a pervading atmosphere of cheer- 
fulness, contentment, and peace, suitable for the 
growth of the purest as of the manliest natures. 

The poorest dwelling, presided over by a vir- 
tuous, thrifty, cheerful, and cleanly woman, may 
thus be the abode of comfort, virtue and happi- 
ness ; it may be the scene of every ennobling 
relation in family life ; it may be endeared to a 
man by many delightful associations ; furnishing a 
sanctuary for the heart, a refuge from the storms 
of life, a sweet retiring-place after labor, a con- 
solation in misfortune, a pride in prosperity, and a 
joy at all times. 

The good home is thus the best of schools, 
not only in youth but in age. There young and 
old best learn cheerfulness, patience, self-control 
and the spirit of service and of duty. Izaak Wal- 
ton, speaking of George Herbert's mother, says 



WOMAN'S WORK. 219 

she governed her family with judicious care, not 
rigidly nor sourly, " but with such a sweetness and 
compliance with the recreations and pleasures of 
youth, as did incline them to spend much of their 
time in her company, which was to her great 
content." 

The home is the true school of courtesy, of 
which a woman is always the best practical in- 
structor. "Without woman," says a Provencal pro- 
verb, " men were but ill-licked cubs." " To love 
the little platoon we belong to in society," said 
Burke, " is the germ of all public affections." 
The wisest and the best have not been ashamed 
to own it to be their greatest joy and happiness 
to sit " behind the heads of children " in the in- 
violable circle of home. A life of purity and duty 
there is not the least effectual preparative for a 
life of public work and duty ; and the man who 
loves his home will not the less fondly love and 
serve his country. — Smiles. 

I have never addressed myself in the language 
of decency and friendship to a woman, whether 
civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and 
friendly answer. With men it has often been 
otherwise. In wandering over the plains of in- 
hospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, 
frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, un- 
principled Russia, and the wide-spread region of 
the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet or 
sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and 
uniformly so ; and to add to this virtue, so worthy 



220 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

of the appellation of benevolence, these actions 
have been performed in so free and so kindly a 
manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweet 
draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, 
with a double relish. — John Ledyard. 

On great occasions it is almost always woman 
who has given the strongest proofs of virtue and 
devotion: the reason is, that with men good and 
bad qualities are in general the result of calcula- 
tion, whilst in women they are impulses springing 
from the heart. — Montholon. 

In matters of affection there is always an im- 
passable gulf between man and man. They can 
never quite grasp each other's hands, and there- 
fore man never derives any intimate help, any 
heart-sustenance from his brother man, but from 
woman — his mother, his sister, or his wife. — Haw- 
thorne. 



■G^3@^Ss®- 



^tnll\. 



^PTEALTH is like armed men that forward 



" Mens sana in sano corpore " —(A sound mind is a sound body). 
I 

§L 

^^ press, 

Equipped with all conditions of success : 

Good generalship ; obedience ; reserves; 



HEALTH. 221 

Valor; endurance; faith that never swerves, 
And that persistence of a mighty will 
Which in defeat has power to conquer still. 

Health is twofold, of body and of mind ; 
Unwholesome when to either one confined. 
What though the mind set in a feeble frame 
May glow and sparkle in a short-lived flame? 
Unite the two, the mind and body strong, 
All possibilities to them belong. 

Guard well thy health : it is the instrument 

Of life, for grand and noble uses meant ; 

The trusty armor of a valiant man 

Strong to achieve what only heroes can ; 

The courage that through change and chance 

endures, 
And every gift of Providence secures. 



Health is a precious thing, and the only one 
in truth meriting that a man should lay out, not 
only his time, sweat, labor, and goods, but also 
his life itself, to obtain it, forasmuch as without 
it life is injurious to us. Pleasure, wisdom, learn- 
ing, and virtue without it wither away and vanish ; 
and to the most quaint and solid discourses that 
philosophy would imprint in us to the contrary, 
we need no more but oppose the image of Plato 
being struck with an epilepsy or apoplexy ; and 
in this presupposition to defy him to call the rich 
faculties of his soul to his assistance. All means 



222 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

that conduce to health can neither be too painful 
nor too dear to me. — Montaigne. 

Health and vigor, and a happy constitution of 
the corporeal frame, are of absolute necessity to 
the enjoyments of the comforts, and to the per- 
formance of the duties, of life, and requisite in 
yet a greater measure to the accomplishment of 
anything illustrious or distinguished ; yet even 
these, if we can judge by their apparent conse- 
quences, are sometimes not very beneficial to 
those on whom they are most liberally bestowed. 
— Dr. Johnson. 

Health is the soul that animates all enjoyments 
of life, which fade, and are tasteless, if not dead, 
without it. A man starves at the best and great- 
est tables, makes faces at the noblest and most 
delicate wines, is poor and wretched in the midst 
of the greatest treasures and fortunes, with com- 
mon diseases ; strength grows decrepit, youth 
loses all vigor, and beauty all charms ; music 
grows harsh, and conversation disagreeable ; pal- 
aces are prisons, or of equal confinement ; riches 
are useless, honor and attendance are cumber- 
some, and crowns themselves are a burden : but 
if diseases are painful and violent, they equal all 
conditions of life, make no difference between a 
prince and a beggar ; and a fit of the stone or 
the colic puts a king on the rack, and makes him 
as miserable as it can the meanest, the worst, 
and most criminal of his subjects. — Sir William 
Temple. 






HEALTH. 223 

Cheerfulness is, in the first place, the best 
promoter of health. Repinings, and secret mur- 
murs of heart, give imperceptible strokes to those 
delicate fibres of which the vital parts are com- 
posed, and wear out the machine insensibly; not 
to mention those violent ferments which they stir 
up in the blood, and those irregular disturbed 
motions which they raise in the animal spirits. I 
scarce remember, in my own observation, to have 
met with many old men, or with such who (to 
use our English phrase) wear well, that had not 
at least a certain indolence in their humor, if not 
a more than ordinary gaiety and cheerfulness oi' 
heart. The truth of it is health and cheerful- 
ness mutually beget each other ; with this differ- 
ence, that we seldom meet with a great degree 
of health which is not attended with a certain 
cheerfulness, but very often see cheerfulness 
where there is no great degree of health. 

Cheerfulness bears the same friendly regard 
to the mind as to the body. It banishes all an- 
xious care and discontent, soothes and composes 
the passions, and keeps the soul in a perpetual 
calm. — Addison. 

In our natural body every part has a neces- 
sary sympathy with every other, and all together 
form, by their harmonious conspiration, a healthy 
whole. — Sir William Hamilton. 

Health, strength, and longevity, depend upon 
immutable laws. There is no arbitrary interfer- 
ence of higher powers with them. Primarily our 



224 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

parents, secondarily ourselves, are responsible for 
them. The providence of God is no more re- 
sponsible, because the virulence of disease rises 
above the power of all therapeutics, or because 
one quarter part of the human race die before 
completing the age of one year, — die before com- 
pleting one seventieth part of the term of exist- 
ence allotted to them by the Psalmist; I say the 
providence of God is no more responsible for 
these things, than it is for picking pockets or 
stealing horses. . . . 

Were a young man to write down a list of 
his duties, Health should be among the first 
items in the catalogue. This is no exaggeration 
of its value ; for health is indispensable to almost 
every form of human enjoyment ; it is the grand 
auxiliary of usefulness ; and should a man love 
the Lord his God, with all his heart and soul and 
mind and strength, he would have ten times more 
heart and soul and mind and strength, to love 
Him with, in the vigor of health, than under the 
palsy of disease. Not only the amount, but the 
quality of the labor which a man can perform, 
depends upon his health. The work savors of the 
workman. If the poet sickens, his verse sickens; 
if black, venous blood flows to an author's brain, 
it beclouds his pages; and the devotions of a 
consumptive man scent of his disease as Lord 
Byron's obscenities smell of gin. Not only 
*' lying- lips," but a dyspeptic stomach, is an abom- 
ination to the Lord. At least in this life, so de- 



RECREATION. 225 

pendent is mind upon material organization, — the 
functions and manifestations of the soul upon the 
condition of the body it inhabits, — that the mate- 
rialist hardly states the matter too strongly when 
he affirms that thought and passion, wit, imagina- 
tion and love are only emanations from exquis- 
itely organized matter, just as perfume is the 
effluence of flowers, or music the etherial pro- 
duct of an /Eolian harp. — Horace Mann. 



Xmtnlhn, 



EAR Recreation claims her hour 
To keep the lamp of life a -trim, 
Our drooping faculties in flower, 
The spirit's eye from growing dim. 

She calls thee to the glassy lake, 
To join the merry skaters there, 

Or, it may be, thy place to take 
Among the singers free from care: 

In spring, to stroll through woodland 
bowers 
When birds are at their even- song; 



226 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Or pluck the beauty of the flowers, 
To which all seasons may belong. 

Do not deny her wise request, 
Ye toilers through the busy day ; 

Ye valiant seekers of the best, 
Turn not in weariness away. 

She brings a pleasing, gentle change, 
And like a schoolboy's glad recess, 

In which the mind is left to range 
In free and playful joyousness. 

And when her season of delight 

Has passed like music through the air, 

We find ourselves refreshed and bright, 
And once again the world is fair. 

There are people in the world who would, if 
they had the power, hang the heavens about with 
crape ; throw a shroud over the beautiful and life- 
giving bosom of the planet ; pick the bright stars 
from the sky ; veil the sun with clouds ; pluck 
the silver moon from her place in the firmament; 
shut up our gardens and fields, and the flowers 
with which they are bedecked ; and doom the 
world to an atmosphere of gloom and cheerless- 
ness. There is no reason or morality in this, and 
there is still less religion. 

A benevolent Creator has endowed man with 
an eminent capacity for enjoyment — has set him 



RECREATION. 227 

in a fair and lovely world, surrounded him with 
things good and beautiful, and given him the dis- 
position to love, to sympathize, to help, to pro- 
duce, to enjoy ; and thus to become an honorable 
and a happy being, bringing God's work to per- 
fection, and enjoying the divine creation in the 
midst of which he lives. 

Make a man happy, and his actions will be 
happy too ; doom him to dismal thoughts and 
miserable circumstances, and you will make him 
gloomy, discontented, morose, and probably vici- 
ous. Hence, coarseness and crime are almost 
invariably found among those who have never 
been accustomed to be cheerful ; whose hearts 
have been shut against the purifying influences 
of a happy communion with nature, or an en- 
lightened and cheerful intercourse with man. 

Man has a strong natural appetite for relaxa- 
tion and amusement, and, like all other natural 
appetites, it has been implanted for a wise pur- 
pose. It cannot be repressed, but will break out 
in one form or another. Any well-directed at- 
tempt to promote an innocent amusement is worth 
a dozen sermons against vicious ones. If we do 
not provide the opportunity for enjoying whole- 
some pleasures, men will certainly find out vici- 
ous ones for themselves. Sydney Smith truly 
said, " In order to attack vice with effect, we must 
set up something better in its place." 

Temperance reformers have not sufficiently 
considered how much the drinking habits of the 






228 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

country are the consequences of gross tastes, 
and of the too limited opportunities which exist 
in this country for obtaining access to amuse- 
ments of an innocent and improving tendency. 
The workman's tastes have been allowed to re- 
main uncultivated ; present wants engross his 
thoughts ; the gratification of his appetites is his 
highest pleasure ; and when he relaxes, it is to 
indulge immoderately in beer or whiskey. The 
Germans were at one time the drunkenest 
of nations ; they are now' among the soberest. 
"As drunken as a German boor," was a com- 
mon proverb. How have they been weaned 
from drink ? Principally by education and music. 

Music has a most humanizing effect. The 
cultivation of the art has a most favorable influ- 
ence upon public morals. It furnishes a source 
of pleasure in every family. It gives home a 
new attraction. It makes social intercourse more 
cheerful. Father Matthew followed up his tem- 
perance movement by a singing movement. He 
promoted the establishment of musical clubs all 
over Ireland; for he felt that, as he had taken 
the people's whiskey from them, he must give 
them some wholesome stimulus in its stead. He 
gave them music. Singing -classes were estab- 
lished, to refine the taste, soften the manners, 
and humanize the mass of the Irish people. But 
we fear that the example set by Father Matthew 
has already been forgotten. 

" What a fulness of enjoyment," says Chan- 



RECREATION. 229 

ning, "has our Creator placed within our reach, 
by surrounding us with an atmosphere which 
may be shaped into sweet sounds ! And yet this 
goodness is almost lost upon us through want 
of culture of the organ by which this provision 
is to be enjoyed." 

How much would the general cultivation of 
the gift of music improve us as a people ! Chil- 
dren ought to learn it in schools, as they do in 
Germany. The voice of music would then be 
heard in every household. Our old English 
glees would no longer be forgotten. Men and 
women might sing in the intervals of their work, 
as the Germans do in going to and coming from 
their wars. The work would not be worse done, 
because it was done amidst music and cheerful- 
ness. The breath of society would be sweetened, 
and pleasure would be linked with labor. — Smiles. 

Recreation is intended to the mind as whet- 
ting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, 
which otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He, 
therefore, that spends his whole time in recrea- 
tion is ever whetting, never mowing; his grass 
may grow, and his steed starve : as, contrarily, he 
that always toils and never recreates is ever 
mowing, never whetting; laboring much to little 
purpose. As good no scythe as no edge. Then 
only doth the work go forward when the scythe 
is so reasonably and moderately whetted that it 
may cut, and so cut that it may have the help of 
sharpening. — Bishop Hall. 



230 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

It must always be remembered that nothing 
can come into the account of recreation that is 
not done with delight. — Locke. 

There is no position in the world more weari- 
some than that of a man inwardly indifferent to 
the amusement in which he is trying to take part. 
You can watch for game with an invincible pa- 
tience, for you have the natural instinct, but after 
the first ten minutes on the skirts of the woods 
I lay my gun down and begin to botanize. Last 
week a friendly neighbor invited me to a boar- 
hunt. The boar was supposed to be in the mid- 
dle of a great impenetrable plantation, and all I 
did during the whole morning was to sit in my 
saddle awaiting the exit of the beast, cantering 
from one point of the wood's circumference to 
another, as the cry of the dogs guided me. Was 
it pleasure? A true hunter would have found 
interest enough in expectation, but I felt like a 
man on a railway-platform who is waiting for a 
train that is late. — Hamerton. 



?*v-S°* e 8- 



My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His 
work. — St. John iv. 34. 

What should a man desire to leave ? 
A flawless work, a noble life, 
Some music harmonized from strife, 

Some finished thing, 'ere the slack hands at eve 
Drop, should be his to leave. 

— F. T. Palgrave. 

No man can end with being superior who will not begin with being 
inferior. — Sidney Smith. 

— Live a life of truest breath, 
And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 

— Tennyson. 

Sacrifice and self-devotion hallow earth and fill the skies 
And the meanest life is sacred whence the highest may arise. 

— Lord Houghton. 

He who works, and feels he works — he who prays and . knows he 
prays — has got the secret of transforming life-failure into life-victory. 

— F. W. Robertson. 

Let all the rest remain a mystery, so long as the mystery of the 
Cross gives us faith for all the rest. — Charles Kingsley. 



(232) 



t$ (Dtttrr 



•ilpr** 



(mk 



WHISPER came that all our actions bend 
Little or much unto a selfish end. 
What then is Charity's reward ? I said. 
The great in soul, by what strong impulse led, 
Do they live out a life of sacrifice, 
Trusting in God until they reach the skies ? 
And while I pondered much a just reply — 
It seems their echo could not wholly die — 
A mighty singer's words resounded in my ear: 
The Helper yonder helps the helper . here. 

Goethe, thou hast proclaimed in this one line 
The height, and depth, and breadth of love divine 
Better than books or sermons ; Charity 
Weareth no other robe of mystery ; 
The source alike of all great thoughts and deeds, 
And that on which the soul expanding feeds. 
Treading our lower selves to dust, we grow 
To larger sympathies, and then we know, 
Castled at length in higher atmosphere, 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here. 
16 ( 233 ) 



234 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Oh, hast thou never thought, who hoardest gold, 
There is a wealth thy coffers cannot hold? 
Perhaps ; but, Dives, thou hast never known 
What blessed riches might have been thine own, 
That Being who bestoweth care on all, 
Who noticeth the sparrows when they fall, 
Examples not to thee a selfish greed 
But active sympathy for others' need, 
Ringing throughout that Writ which we revere, 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here. 

People do show thee deference: the dower 
Of cunning traffic hath obtained thee power; 
Columns of marble do thy roof sustain; 
Thy rooms are filled with elegance ; a train 
Of guests around thy banquet-table ring 
Their goblets, titling thee their festive king, 
And it may be that on thy soul some blight 
Has fallen, shutting from thy inner sight 
The mystery in which these words appear: 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here. 

Although thou lackest faith in tongue and pen, 
Can nothing choke thee with a grand amen? 
Behold this angel — not one in disguise — 
Her heart grown light through weight of sacrifice ; 
Who bears through storm, and from a scanty 

store, 
A portion unto them that need it more, 
Receiving pay in blessings of the poor, 
And going richer, happier from their door; 







"Behold this angel— not one in disguise— 
Her heart grown light through weight of sacrifice 
Who bears through storm, and from a scanty stor 
A portion unto them that netd it more." 



P^ fliuCtf 



THE TWO HELPERS. 235 

And tell me, if thou canst, it is not clear 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here ! 

Heaven is thy birth-place, Charity, and he 
Who entertains thee, greatest of the three 
Celestial Sisters, has an angel guest 
Who cheers her lonely kindred in his breast, 
As we some sorrowing friend in banishment, 
Whisp'ring sweet words with hope and comfort 

blent. 
O rare reward ! And have I guessed it, then, 
The way thou teachest unto erring men 
Thy holy message from the heavenly sphere, 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here ? 

The souls that climb the lofty eminence 
And, breathing there an inspiration, thence 
Bend down to aid the lowly multitude, 
Holding before their eyes the promised good, 
Untiring workers for humanity, 
Exemplars of a Christ -like charLy, 
The Wilberforces and the Howards, men 
Who, with the levers of the tongue and pen, 
Exalt the world — mark how they persevere ; — 
The Helper yonder helps such helpers here ! 

Those modest workers, heroes of the mind, 
Who build the lofty ramparts of mankind, 
Firmer than granite, and in silence wrought 
Of the uncrumbling masonry of thought — 
From whence the recompense which they deserve 
For still more arduous tasks to give them nerve? 



236 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

For such reward they look in vain to man, 
Although he freely give them all he can. 
This is their creed, full strong to conquer fear: 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here. 

And thus the faith of those meek laborers, 

Whom Charity may justly claim as hers, 

The faithful stewards of the mind and soul, 

Who hold their course until they reach the goal 

Of mortal toil, as steady as a star 

Circling through yonder heavens. Such there are, 

Have been and yet will be, of nobler worth 

Than finds a recognition here on earth, 

The brave, believing still, though want l?e near, 

The Helper yonder helps the helper here. 

Life is to labor where'er duty's voice 

May call, with strength to spurn the baser 

choice ; 
And who so triumphs, angels write his name 
As one deserving more than mortal fame. 
The conflict is at hand ! Take up thy shield, 
My soul ! and to whatever battle-field 
Thou rangest, nerve thyself to courage there, 
And, flinging scorn upon that word Despair, 
Remember aye this verse of lofty cheer : 
The Helper yonder helps the helper here. 



I cannot name this gentleman (John Howard) 
without remarking that his labors and writings 
have done much to open the eyes and hearts of 



THE TWO HELPERS. 237 

mankind. He has visited all Europe, — not to sur- 
vey the sumptuousness of palaces or the state- 
liness of temples, not to make accurate measure- 
ments of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to 
form a scale of the curiosity of modern art, not 
to collect medals or collate manuscripts, — but to 
dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into 
the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions 
of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and 
dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt, 
to remember the forgotten, to attend to the ne- 
glected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and 
collate the distresses of all men in all countries. 
His plan is original, and it is as full of genius as 
it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery 
— a circumnavigation of charity. Already the 
benefit of his labor is felt more or less in every 
country; I hope he will anticipate his final reward 
by seeing all its effects fully realized in his own. 
He will receive, not by retail, but in gross, the 
reward of those who visit the prisoner ; and he has 
so forestalled and monopolized this branch of char- 
ity, that there will be, I trust, little room to merit 
by such acts of benevolence hereafter. — Burke. 

True humanity consists not in a squeamish ear; 
it consists not in starting or shrinking at tales of 
misery, but in a disposition of heart to relieve 
it. True humanity appertains rather to the mind 
than to the nerves, and prompts men to use real 
and active endeavors to execute the actions which 
it suggests. — C. J. Fox. 



238 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

You might have traversed the Roman empire 
in the zenith of its power, from the Euphrates to 
the Atlantic, without meeting with a single char- 
itable asylum for the sick. Monuments of pride, 
of ambition, of vindictive wrath, were to be found 
in abundance; but not one legible record of com- 
miseration for the poor. It was reserved for the 
religion whose basis is humility, and whose ele- 
ment is devotion, to proclaim with authority, 
" Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy." — Robert Hall. 



JPiiril^ 



Unspotted from the world — James I. 27. 

MS birds that are not free 
w-, pj ne f or tne i r na tive air, 

So longs my soul, O God, for Thee, 
To make her pure and fair. 

For only to the pure 
Thou dost Thy vision give : 
Impurity cannot endure 
Within Thy sight to live. 



PURITY. 239 

Keep Thou my soul, O God, 
" Thy vineyard of red wine :" 
No longer by defilers trod, 
O keep her wholly Thine. 

So shall the sight of Thee 
Be sweetness day by day, 
And in Thy free-born Purity 
Her bondage pass away. 

There is a principle which is pure, placed in 
the human mind, which in different places and 
ages hath had different names; it is, however, 
pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and 
inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor ex- 
cluded from any, when the heart stands in per- 
fect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and 
grows, they become brethren. — John Woolman. 

The stained lives. Where is the man or 
woman who does not know what it means ? 
There is the most outward sort of stain — the 
stain upon the reputation. It is what men see 
as they pass us, and know us by it for one who 
has struggled and been worsted. What man has 
come to middle life, and kept so pure a name 
that men look at it for refreshment and courage 
as they pass ? When we remember what a source 
of strength the purest reputations in the world 
have always been, what a stimulus and help, 
then we get some idea of what the world loses 
in the fact that almost every reputation becomes 



240 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

so blurred and spotted that it is wholly unfit to 
be used as a light or a pattern before the man 
is old enough to give it any positive character or 
force. Then there are the stains upon our con- 
duct, the impure and untrue acts which cross and 
cloud the fair surface of all our best activity. 
And then, far worst of all, there is the stain 
upon the heart, of which nobody but the man 
himself knows anything, but which to him gives 
all their unhappiness to the other stains, the de- 
based motives, the low desires, the wicked pas- 
sions of the inner life. These are the stains 
which we accumulate. We set out for the battle 
in the morning strong and clean. By and by we 
catch a moment in the lull of the struggle to 
look down upon ourselves, and how tired and 
how covered with dust and blood we are. How 
long back our first purity seems — how long the 
day seems sometimes— how long since we began 
to live. You know what stains are on your 
lives. Each of us knows, every man and woman, 
as we are here this morning. They burn to 
your eyes even if no neighbor sees them. They 
burn in the still air of the Sabbath even if we 
do not see them in the week. You would not 
think for the world that your children should 
grow up to the same stains that have fastened 
upon you. You dream for them of a " life un- 
spotted from the world," and the very anxiety of 
that dream proves how you know that your own 
life is spotted and stained. 



PURITY. 241 

And that dream for the children is almost 
hopeless. At any rate the danger is that you 
will give it up by and by, and get to expecting 
and excusing the stains that will come upon them 
as they grow older. The worst thing about all 
this staining power of the world is the way in 
which we come to think of it as inevitable. We 
practically believe that no man can keep himself 
unspotted. He must accumulate his stains. Hear 
how much there is of this low, despairing tone 
on every side of us. You talk about the corrup- 
tion of political life that seems to have infected 
the safest characters, and the answer is, " Oh, 
there is nothing strange about it. No man can 
go through that trial and not fall. No man can 
live years in Washington, and be wholly pure." 
You talk with a great many business men about 
some point of doubtful conventional morality, and 
they look at you in your professional seclusion, 
with something that is more than half pity. "That 
is all very well for you," they say, " but that will 
not do upon the street. I should like to see you 
try to apply that standard to the work I have to 
do to make my bread." And just so when you 
talk about earnestness to the mere creature of 
society. " It is a mere dream," the answer is, 
"to think that social life can be elevated and 
made noble. Whoever goes there must expect 
the spots upon the robe ; and so, if he is wise, 
will go with robes that will show spots as little as 
possible, — robes as near the world's color as he is 



242 WEALS OF LIFE. 

able to procure." It is not true. Men do go 
through political life as pure and poor as any 
most retired mechanic lives and works at his 
bench. And there are merchants who do carry, 
through all the temptations of business life, the 
same high standards, — hands just as clean, and 
hearts just as tender, as they have when they 
pray to God or teach their little children. And 
social life is lighted up with the lustre of the 
white, unstained robes of many a pure man or 
woman who walks through its midst. But the 
spots fall so thick that it is easy for men to say, 
" No one can go there and escape them. It is 
hopeless to try and keep yourself unspotted from 
the world ; " and then (for that comes instantly), 
"We are not to blame for the world's spots upon 
us." 

I said this was the worst, but there is one 
worse thing still. When a man comes not merely 
to tolerate, but to boast, of the stains that the 
world has flung upon him ; when he wears his 
spots as if they were jewels ; when he flaunts 
his unscrupulousness and his cynicism, and his 
disbelief, and his heard- heartedness, in your face, 
as the signs and badges of his superiority ; when 
to be innocent and unsuspicious and sensitive 
seems to be ridiculous and weak ; when it is 
reputable to show that we are men of the world 
by exhibiting the stains that the world has left 
upon our reputation, our conduct, and our heart, 
then we understand how flagrant is the danger ; 



PURITY. 243 

then we see how hard it must be to keep our- 
selves unspotted from the world. The world's 
stains do become matters of pride and choice. 
We compare ourselves with one another. We 
decide what claims shall be most honorable. We 
give conventional ranks and values to the signs 
of our own disgrace. It is more respectable to 
have learnt heartlessness from the world than to 
have learnt dishonesty ; more honorable to have 
become miserly than to have become licentious. 
As the Jews used to establish a rank and pre- 
cedence between the commandments which God 
had given them, so we decide which of the laws 
of the world, our master, it is good to keep, and 
which others it is good to break. 

And now, in view of all this, we come to our 
religion. We hear St. James, as true to-day as 
when he wrote to those first Christians. In his 
unsparing words he tells us what Christianity has 
to say to all this state of things. " Pure religion 
and undefiled before God, and the Father, is this, 
to visit the fatherless and widows in their afflic- 
tion, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
world." See how intolerant Religion is. She 
starts with what men have declared to be impos- 
sible. She refuses to bring down her standards. 
She insists that men must come up to her. No 
man is thoroughly religious, she declares, unless 
he does this, which it seems so hard to do, unless 
he goes through this world untainted, as the 
sunbeam goes through the mist. Religion re- 



244 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

fuses to be degraded into a mere means for ful- 
filling the purposes of man's selfishness. She 
proclaims absolute standards, and will not lower 
them. She will not say to any man, weak and 
compromising with the world, " Well, your case is 
a hard one, and for you I waive a part of my 
demands. For you religion shall mean not to do 
this sin or that sin. These other sins, in con- 
sideration of your feebleness and temptations, I 
give you leave to do." Before every man, in the 
very thickest of the world's contagions, she stands 
and says, with her unwavering voice, " Come out. 
Be separate. Keep yourself unspotted from the 
world." 

There is something sublime in this unsparing- 
ness. It almost proves that our religion is divine, 
when it undertakes for a man so divine a task. 
It could not sustain itself in its great claim to be 
from God, unless it took this high and Godlike 
ground, that whoever named the name of Christ 
must depart from all iniquity. My dear friends, 
our religion is not true unless it have this power 
in it. Unless the statesman taking it to Con- 
gress, the merchant taking it into business, the 
man or woman carrying it with them where they 
go in all their ordinary occupations and amuse- 
ments, do indeed find it the power of purity and 
strength. We must bring our faith to this test. 
Unless our Christianity does this for us, it is not 
the true religion that St. James talked of, and 
that the Lord Jesus came to reveal and to be- 
stow. — Phillips Brooks. 






FOOD FOB THE SOUL. 245 



Jjtfflb far lip ^onL 



It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone. — St. Matthexv iv. 4. 

fM TABLE in the wilderness 
^"~" Is spread for thee, dear soul : 
Its dainty things will not grow less, 
It has no scanty dole. 

There is an angel at the board 

To welcome every guest, 
The shining servant of the Lord 

To offer thee the best. 

Come near, come near, and take thy full, 

If that may ever be, 
And day by day grow beautiful 

Till Heaven is orbed in thee. 

The first red blushes of the morn, 

So gentle and so calm, 
Which everlasting life adorn, 

Like some prophetic psalm, 

Shall hint full many a blessed thing 

The Master hath in store, 
To satisfy thy hungering 

Both now and evermore. 

And do not doubt the joys of time 
Are like the joys above, 



246 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Though service there be more sublime, 
Since love is always love. 

For Heaven has its commencement here, 

Within the wilderness, 
Where love begins to cast out fear 

And banish loneliness ; 

And Christ's dear Brotherhood of Grace, 

Eternal and unseen, 
Is God's shekinah to the race, 

No veil to intervene. 



That hunger, which has so ruled men always, 
which has made them violate, duty, commit great 
crimes, sacrifice their strongest natural affections ; 
that need of bread, which, working steadily, has 
developed man into all the progress of civiliza- 
tion, and, working violently and spasmodically, has 
turned man into a brute ; that need of bread, 
which always lies primary to the forces that con- 
trol men's lives, had taken hold of this new hu- 
man life of Jesus. It was a real temptation. He 
was genuinely an hungered. This compulsion of 
the lower nature has, for the first time perhaps 
in Him, met the compulsion of the higher nature 
under which He has wholly lived. Now will He 
yield ? His whole work, our whole hope, hangs 
upon His decision. There was, there must have 
been, a real chance of His yielding. But as we 
look at Him, we see that He will not yield. The 



FOOD FOB THE SOUL. 247 

old eternal joy of serving God outweighs the 
new temptation of the senses. It grows clear 
before Him that the higher life of the spirit is 
more precious than, is worth any sacrifice of, the 
lower life of the flesh. He says, <; I choose." 
The victory is won. " Let me be hungry, but let 
me not disobey God." 

But we see also, in this reply of Jesus, how 
thoroughly He had entered into and identified 
Himself with the humanity which he had assumed. 
He takes His temptation as a man. He gives 
His answer as a man. It is not the speech of 
one bringing a superior nature, clothed in supe- 
rior strength, and so capable of an exceptional 
resistance where ordinary manhood must give 
way. It is not, " I, as God, must have divine 
sustenance, and so can do without your human 
food." It is, " Man shall not live by bread 
alone." Simply as men, we all, the poorest and 
the greatest of us altogether, need the life of 
obedience, and any sacrifice of the flesh is cheap 
that wins it for us. Here was the second value 
of the temptation of Christ. It was not only the 
divine Mediator preparing Himself for his task, 
and proving the temper of the arms with which 
He was to fight the battle ; it was the highest, 
the perfect man, becoming conscious of himself, 
and declaring, in behalf of all humanity, the uni- 
versal human necessities. " I, as man," He says, 
need more than bread. I must not be satisfied, 
I am not satisfied, with mere food for the body: 



24S IDEALS OF LIFE. 

I must have truth." Humanity was tested there. 
Can it in this supreme specimen of it be satisfied 
with bread ? If it can, then all these dreams, 
these cravings, these discontents, these importu- 
nate demands of men for spiritual things, for 
truth, for duty, for God, are mere chimeras. If 
it cannot, if this man, the best of men, says that 
food is not enough for man, then no man ought 
to be satisfied so long as he has only the mere 
nourishment that feeds the body. " Man shall 
not live by bread alone." No doubt it all seemed 
perfectly clear to Jesus. It was almost a truism 
to Him. Humanity lay perfectly open to His 
consciousness. Reading Himself, He read man 
as man never had been read by man before. 
He said, That is not life which bread alone can 
feed. Life for man means a spiritual condition 
which only spiritual forces can supply. There- 
fore, of course, man shall not live by bread 
alone. It is like saying that a tree cannot live 
merely upon water. It needs other elements 
which the rich earth must give. That is its 
nature. 

And one thing more about this assertion by 
Christ of the higher necessities of man. He 
does not simply discern them in his own human 
consciousness. It is noticeable that He also cor- 
roborates them out of the past experience of 
men. He not merely sees in Himself that man 
cannot live at his fullest, except in obedience to 
God; He also discovers in the past that men 



FOOD FOR THE SOUL. 249 

have found this out and recognized it. For, no- 
tice, His reply is a quotation : " It is written, 
Man shall not live by bread alone." He quotes 
from the speech which Moses had made to the 
people of Israel, after they had crossed the des- 
ert, and when they were just about to enter the 
Promised Land. He says, Moses found out 
there in his desert what I have found here in my 
wilderness. He wrote it down, and here I find 
it true. So He appeals to experience. He 
strengthens His own present conciousness by the 
assurance that other men have known the same ; 
that it has always been true. As He had said 
before, It is not something which belongs to me 
in my exceptional divine nature, but it belongs to 
all men ; so he says now, It is not true only in 
these special, temporary conditions ; it has always 
been true. The best and most human men have 
always known it, — that man was soul as well as 
body, and that he did not really live unless he 
had not merely bread for the body, but truth and 
duty, God's word, for the soul. — Phillips Brooks. 



17 






250 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



« 



f>£m}tl 



HUotn 



JEMPTATION everywhere 
Besets our life below : 
For still the devil spreads his snare, 
And when we do not know. 



Our selfishness is great: 

The bait is fair to see ; 
And if we in its presence wait — 



Who gains the victory 



There is a still small voice 
That speaks to every heart: 

On hearing, make an instant choice, 
And from the bait depart. 

Or else thy sword unsheath, 
That blade divine and strong, 

And smite and tread the lure beneath, 
Where all such things belong. 



Whoever yields to temptation debases himself 
with a debasement from which he can never 
arise. This, indeed, is the calamity of calamities, 
the bitterest dreg in the cup of bitterness. Every 
unrighteous act tells with a thousand fold more 
force upon the actor than upon the sufferer. 
The false man is more false to himself than to 



TEMPTATION. 251 

any one else. He may despoil others, but him- 
self is the chief loser. The world's scorn he 
might sometimes forget, but the knowledge of 
his own perfidy is undying. The fire of guilty 
passions may torment whatever lies within the 
circle of its radiations ; but fire is always hot- 
test at the center, and that center is the prof- 
ligate's own heart. A man can be wronged 
and live; but the unresisted, unchecked impulse 
to do wrong is the first and the second death. 
The moment any one of the glorious faculties 
with which God has endowed us is abused or 
misused, that faculty loses, forever, a portion of 
its delicacy and its energy. Physiology teaches 
us that all privation and all violence suffered 
by our physical system, before birth, impairs 
the very stamina of our constitution, and sends 
us into the world, so far shorn of the energies, 
and blunted in the fineness of the perceptions, 
we should otherwise possess. So every injury 
we inflict upon our moral nature, in this life, 
must dull, forever and ever, our keen capacities 
of enjoyment, though in the midst of infinite bliss, 
and weaken our power of ascension where virtu- 
ous spirits are ever ascending. It must send us 
forward into the next stage of existence maimed 
and crippled, so that however high we may soar, 
our flight will be less lofty than it otherwise 
would have been, and however exquisite our 
bliss, it will always be less exquisitely blissful 
than it was capable of being. Every instance of 



252 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

violated conscience, like every broken string in a 
harp, will limit the compass of its music, and mar 
its harmonies forever. Tremble, then, and for- 
bear, oh man ! when thou wouldst forget the 
dignity of thy nature and the immortal glories 
of thy destiny, for if thou dost cast down thine 
eyes to look with complacency upon the tempter, 
or lend thine ear to listen to his seductions, 
thou dost doom thyself to move for ever and 
ever through inferior spheres of being ; thou 
dost wound and dim the very organ, with 
which alone thou canst behold the splendors of 
eternity. — Horace Mann. 

Temptations in the Wilderness ! Have we 
not all to be tried with such ? Not so easily 
can the old Adam, lodged in us by birth, be 
dispossessed. Our Life is compassed round with 
Necessity ; yet is the meaning of Life itself no 
other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus 
have we warfare ; in the beginning, especially, a 
hard -fought battle. For the God-given mandate, 
Work thou in Well-doing, lies mysteriously writ- 
ten, in Promethean, Prophetic Characters, in our 
hearts ; and leaves no rest, night or day, till it 
be deciphered and obeyed ; till it burn forth, in 
our conduct, a visible, acted Gospel of Freedom. 
And as the clay-given mandate, Eat thou and be 
filled, at the same time persuasively proclaims 
itself through every nerve, — must not there be a 
confusion, a contest, before the better Influence 
can become the upper? 



TEMPTATION. 253 

To me nothing seems more natural than that 
the Son of Man, when such God-given mandate 
first prophetically stirs him, and the Clay must 
now be vanquished or vanquish, — should be car- 
ried of the Spirit unto grim Solitudes, and there 
fronting the Tempter do grimmest battle with 
him, defiantly setting him at naught, till he yield 
and fly. Name it as we choose: with or with- 
out visible Devil, whether in the natural Desert 
of rocks and sands, or in the populous moral 
Desert of selfishness and baseness, — to such 
Temptation are we all called. Unhappy if we 
are not ! Unhappy if we are but Half- men, in 
whom that divine handwriting has never blazed 
forth, all -subduing in true sun - splendor ; but 
quivers dubiously amid meaner lights : or smould- 
ers, in dull pain, in darkness, under earthly va- 
pors ! — Our Wilderness is the wide World in an 
Atheistic Century ; our Forty Days are long 
years of suffering and fasting : nevertheless, to 
these also comes an end. Yes, to me also was 
given, if not Victory, yet the consciousness of 
Battle, and the resolve to preserve therein while 
life or faculty is left. To me also, entangled in 
the enchanted forests, demon-peopled, doleful of 
sight and of sound, it was given, after weariest 
wanderings, to work out my way into the higher 
sunlit slopes — of that Mountain which has no 
summit, or whose summit is in Heaven only! — 
Carlyle. 

Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the 



254 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. 
It is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melan- 
choly sounds may reverberate through eternity. 
Like the sudden, sharp cry of Fire ! in the night, 
it should rouse us to instantaneous activity, and 
brace every muscle to its highest tension. — Hor- 
ace Mann. 

Set a pleasure tempting, and the hand of the 
Almighty visibly prepared to take vengeance, and 
tell whether it be possible for people wantonly 
to offend against the law. — Locke. 

Every man living shall assuredly meet with 
an hour of temptation, a certain critical hour, 
which shall more especially try what mettle his 
heart is made of. — South. 

He that with his Christian armor manfully 
fights against and repels the temptations and 
assaults of his spiritual enemies, he that keeps his 
conscience void of offense, shall enjoy peace here 
and forever. — Ray. 

In time of temptation be not busy to dis- 
pute, but rely upon the conclusion, and throw 
yourself upon God, and contend not with Him, 
but in prayer. — Jeremy Taylor. 

Reflect upon a clear, unblotted, acquitted con- 
science, and feed upon the ineffable comforts of 
the memorial of a conquered temptation. — South. 

Every Christian is endued with a power 
whereby he is enabled to resist and conquer 
temp ta tio n . — Tillotson. 



THE ANGEL OF PRAYER. 255 



^tj Jjtgsl n\ fmpp. 



pgrOMETIMES when the future grows dark 
■*® And frowns with the gloom of despair, 
I lose the one beautiful mark 

Which gleamed in the bright sunny air. 

And oh ! in the darkness I grope 
And mourn for the lost and the fair, 

Until, in the dawning of hope, 
I meet with the Angel of Prayer: 

That Angel of prayer who of old 

Gave Jacob the courage to dare 
The might of a foe that was bold, 

And lifted his burden of care. 

And that which was lost in the night, 

I find in the firmament, where 
It glows in the beautiful light, 

And faster I climb to it there. 

Our strong crying and tears in effort which 
has never reached its earthly end, our long and 
unrewarded toil of love and knowledge, are not 
lost in us. They are in reality latent powers in 
the soul, which in an undefective world will be- 
come strength of thought and ease of attainment. 
As the forces of the sunlight stored up in the 



256 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

vegetation of the coal break forth again mil- 
lions of years afterwards to cheer a happy 
fireside at Christmas time with light and heat, 
so the stored up force of our endurance will 
manifest itself as passionate joy under new con- 
ditions of being. Nay, we may even measure 
the hidden force of life within us by the depth 
of our sorrow. 

This is the answer we may give ourselves 
when the increase of spiritual or mental knowl- 
edge has deepened in us, in a transient pass- 
age of melancholy, the pain of the contrast be- 
tween the hopes of youth and the toil of man- 
hood. 

But if such a melancholy were to continue, 
— if, as some do, we cherish retrospect and 
find our only pleasure in remembering what 
we were, in continually wailing over dead ideals, 
— then the answer is sharper and sterner. It is 
given in the results which this unmanly melan- 
choly brings. We become useless, dreamy, sloth- 
ful men ; we become indifferent to the great in- 
terests of the Present because we are absorbed 
in the Past. We cease to grow, because we are 
isolated in self; and he who ceases to grow goes 
back slowly into the realm of nothingness and 
death. We are a dead weight on the progress 
of the world. Our idleness is an injury to the 
race ; and the race rejects and despises us. 
Then our melancholy, face to face with this con- 
tempt, changes its nature ; its dainty sweetness 









THE ANGEL OF PRAYER. 257 

departs, and is succeeded by the coarse sourness 
of an old age of scorn. 

That is the stern reply of law to the man 
who indulges in the continued melancholy of 
retrospect, to whom added knowledge has only 
brought despair of the future. 

It is unmanliness to linger thus among the 
tombs. Christ calls us to a higher thought of 
life. Let dead ideals bury themselves, He says ; 
come away from them and follow Me ; there are 
other ideals in front, better and larger than the 
past. St. Paul accepts and realizes the whole po- 
sition. ' When I was a child, I spake as a child, 
I understood as a child, I thought as a child ; 
but when I became a man, I put away childish 
things.' There is no unmanly retrospect in that, 
neither is there any depreciation of childhood. It 
had its own ways, they were good then — it was 
a joyful time, that too was good — but to wish it 
back again, except for a moment, were unworthy. 
Manhood brings nobler work, higher duties ; and 
the child-life and youth are to be put away for- 
ever. Nor was this said by one who did not 
feel the weight of the trouble which besets man- 
hood. For he goes on : ' Now, we see through 
a glass darkly ' — ' now we know in part.' But, 
observe, the pain does not send him back for 
comfort, but forward. He steps out of a barren 
melancholy, being the possessor of an earnest 
faith and a saving hope. The time is coming 
when we shall see face to face, when we shall 



258 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



know as we are known: indistinct knowledge 
which bringeth sorrow, partial knowledge which 
itself is grief, shall vanish in clear light of perfect 
truth, in completed knowledge, and clearness and 
completion are faultless joy. It is the one inspir- 
ing element of Christianity that it throws us in 
boundless hope upon the future and forbids us 
to dwell in the poisonous shadows of the past. 
A new and better growth is before us, a fresher, 
a diviner, a more enthusiastic life awaits us. We 
are to wake up satisfied in the likeness of Christ, 
the ever-young Humanity. Therefore, forgetting 
those things which are behind, let us press for- 
ward unto the mark of the prize of our high 
calling in Christ Jesus. — Stopford A. Brooke. 



•rflmWimu 



W^WHO escapeth tribulation 
^^ In this sad and joyful world ? 
Who, to bring humiliation, 

Has no blows upon him hurled? 



Providence is like a father 

Who corrects a wayward child, 



TRIBULATION. 259 

Lest the clouds of judgment gather 
Over one that is defiled. 

Better now the wise assurance 
That the sorrow soon will pass, 

Than the grief of long endurance 
And the bitter cry Alas ! 



Better now the brief chastisement 
And the light that follows fast, 

Than the doom with no revisement 
And the darkness never past. 



I find two sad etymologies of tribulation. One 
from tribuhts, a three-forked thorn, which inti- 
mates that such afflictions which are as full of 
pain and anguish to the soul, as a thorn thrust 
into a tender part of the flesh is unto the body, 
may properly be termed tribulations. 

The other, from trihulus, the head of a flail, 
or flagel, knaggy and knotty (made commonly, as 
I take it, of a thick, black thorn), and then it 
imports that afflictions, falling upon us as heavy 
as the flail threshing the corn, are styled tribula- 
tions. 

I am in a strait which deduction to embrace, 
from the sharp or from the heavy thorn. But 
which is the worst, though I may choose whence 
to derive the word, I cannot choose so as to de- 
cline the thing, "I must through much tribulation 
enter into the kingdom of God." 



WEALS OF LIFE. 



Therefore, I will labor not to be like a young 
colt first set to plough, which more tires himself 
out with his misspent mettle than with the weight 
of what he draws ; and will labor patiently to 
bear what is imposed upon me. — Thomas Fuller. 



\\hnk 



&TS there balm in Gilead? 
CSG - Is there any physician there? 
Is there any ease from my pain to be had? 
Is there aught to be found that is fair ? 

Can I from myself escape, 

Where demons upon me stare? 

And, if I outwit the stormy cape, 
Is Elysium anywhere ? 

For my soul is aghast at sin, 
Crying day and night, Beware ! 

And praying for Joy to arise within 
To hide the face of Despair. 

A gracious answer came back 

To these questions I could not forbear, 
The while I turned on my wayward track 

And breathed the celestial air: 




"Is there balm in Gilead? 

Is there any physician there? 
Is there any ease from my pain to be had ? 

Is there aught to be found that is fair?" 



GILEAD. 261 

A breath that came down from above 
And gave me the heart to dare 

To believe and confess that God is love, 
And commit myself to His care. 



Fichte and Carlyle proclaim rightly that there 
is grandeur in noble sorrow ; it is ill with him 
who is incapable of spiritual anguish, even lofty 
despair. That very pain is a proof of devotion 
to truth ; as the keenness of the slighted lover's 
distress tests the depth of his affection. Better 
bow before a veiled Isis than care not whether 
the Divine can be known at all ! 

But for him who doubts sincerely, and will 
nowise fail from his faith in truth itself, there may 
be ordained the breaking forth of a great glory 
of deliverance and of dawn. True it is, his doubt 
is to be hated, and he can never fairly take the 
road until it is no more. But the brightness of 
the morning may be proportioned to the length and 
darkness of the night. The over-wearied dove 
long winged its aimless way, over an earth that 
was but one wide waste of waters, under a 
streamy and darkened sky ; and now its tired 
pinions flapped heavily, the heart within had al- 
most failed, the last ray of hope was fading from 
the eye ; but even then the olive twig emerged, 

tand from a rift in the thick cloud a beam of 
light fell on* the fainting breast, and gradually 
the earth again unveiled her face, and the tri- 
umphant embrace of the returning light kindled 



262 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

a glory which eclipsed all other dawns. Need 
we apply the parable ? — Peter Bayne. 



jKBttltmu 



,dE\ THOU that long hast sought a benediction 
<2XiV ~ And mourned because it seemed to flee, 
Dost know that in the Furnace of Affliction 
The Lord hath chosen thee ? 

Be still, and look upon the Lord and Saviour ! 

Thy grief to peace and joy will grow 
What time the current of His great behavior 

Shall through thy being flow. 

For so He teaches men on earth are sainted, 

Whose life is duty everywhere, 
Until they seem as those no more acquainted 

With any cross they bear. 

And all thy life, however full of sorrow, 

Thou mayest follow in His train, 
And wear to-day and in the grand to-morrow 

The majesty of Pain. 

Suffering is doubtless as divinely appointed as 
Joy, while it is much more influential as a dis- 



AFFLICTION. 263 

cipline of character. It chastens and sweetens 
the nature, teaches patience and resignation, and 
promotes the deepest as well as the most exalted 
thought. 

"The best of men 
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer; 
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spiiit; 
The first true gentleman that ever breathed." 

Suffering may be the appointed means by 
which the highest nature of man is to be dis- 
ciplined and developed. Assuming happiness to 
be the end of being, sorrow may be the indis- 
pensible condition through which it is to be 
reached. Hence St. Paul's noble parables de- 
scriptive of the Christian life, "As chastened and 
not killed ; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing ; 
as poor, yet making many rich ; as having noth- 
ing, and yet possessing all things." 

Even pain is not all painful. On one side it 
is related to suffering, and on the other to hap- 
piness. For pain is remedial as well as sorrow- 
ful. Suffering is a misfortune, as viewed from one 
side, and a discipline as viewed from the other. 
But for suffering, the best part of many men's 
nature would sleep a deep sleep. Indeed, it 
might almost be said that pain and sorrow were 
the indispensable conditions of some men's suc- 
cess, and the necessary means to evoke the high- 
est development of their genius. Shelley has 
said of poets : 

" Most wretched men are cradled into poetry by wrong, 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 



234 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Does anyone suppose that Burns would have 
sung as he did had he been rich, respectable, and 
" kept a gig ; " or Byron, if he had been a pros- 
perous Lord Privy Seal or Postmaster - General ? 

Sometimes a heart-break rouses an impassive 
nature to life. "What does he know," said a sage, 
"who has not suffered?" When Dumas asked 
Reboul, " What made you a poet ? " his answer 
was, " Suffering ! " It was the death, first of his 
wife, and then of his child, that drove him into 
solitude for the indulgence of his grief, and even- 
tually led him to seek and find relief in verse. 
It was also to a domestic affliction that we owe 
the beautiful writings of Mrs. Gaskell. "It was 
as a recreation, in the highest sense of the word," 
says a recent writer, speaking from personal 
knowledge, " as an escape from the great void of 
a life from which a cherished presence had been 
taken, that she began that series of exquisite 
creations which has served to multiply the num- 
ber of our acquaintances and to enlarge even the 
circle of our friendships." 

Much of the best and most useful work done 
by men and women has been done amidst afflic- 
tion — sometimes as a relief from it, sometimes 
from a sense of duty overpowering personal sor- 
row. " If I had not been so great an invalid," 
said Dr. Darwin to a friend, " I should not have 
done nearly so much work as I have been able 
to accomplish." So Dr. Donne, speaking of his 
illness, once said: "The advantage you and my 



AFFLICTION. 265 

other friends have by my frequent fevers is, that 
I am so much the oftener at the gates of 
Heaven ; and by the solitude and close imprison- 
ment they reduce me to, I am so much the 
oftener at my prayers, in which you and my 
other dear friends are not forgotten." 

Schiller produced his greatest tragedies in the 
midst of physical suffering almost amounting to 
torture. Handel was never greater than when, 
warned by palsy of the approach of death, and 
struggling with distress and suffering, he sat 
down to compose the great works which have 
made his name immortal in music. Mozart com- 
posed his great operas, and last of all his 
" Requiem," when oppressed by debt, and strug- 
gling with a fatal disease. Beethoven produced 
his greatest works amidst gloomy sorrow, when 
oppressed by almost total deafness. And poor 
Schubert, after his short but brilliant life, laid it 
down at the early age of thirty-two ; his sole 
property at his death consisting of his manu- 
scripts, the clothes he wore, and sixty - three 
florins in money. Some of Lamb's finest writings 
were produced amidst deep sorrow ; and Hood's 
apparent gayety often sprang from a suffering 
heart. As he himself wrote : 

" There's not a string attuned to mirth, 
But has its chord in melancholy." 

Again, in science, we have the noble instance of 
the suffering Wollaston, even in the last stages 
of the mortal disease which afflicted him, devot- 

18 



2G6 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

ing his numbered hours to putting on record, by 
dictation, the various discoveries and improve- 
ments he had made, so that any knowledge he 
had acquired calculated to benefit his fellow- 
creatures might not be lost. 

Afflictions often prove but blessings in dis- 
guise. " Fear not the darkness," said the Per- 
sian sage ; it " conceals perhaps the springs of 
the waters of life." Experience is often bitter, 
but wholesome, only by its teaching can we 
learn to suffer and be strong. Character, in its 
highest forms, is 'disciplined by trial, and "made 
perfect through suffering." Even from the deep- 
est sorrow the patient and thoughtful mind will 
gather richer wisdom than pleasure ever yielded. 
— Smiles. 

Consider that sad accidents and a state of 
affliction is a school of virtue. It reduces our 
spirits to soberness, and our counsels to modera- 
tion ; it corrects levity, and interrupts the confi- 
dence of sinning. . . . God, who in mercy 
and wisdom governs the world, would never have 
suffered so many sadnesses, and have sent them, 
especially, to the most virtuous and the wisest 
men, but that he intends they should be the 
seminary of comfort, the nursery of virtue, the 
exercise of wisdom, the trial of patience, the ven- 
turing for a crown, and the gate of glory. — 
Jeremy Taylor. 

The time of sickness or affliction is like the 
cool of the day to Adam, a season of peculiar 






AFFLICTION. 267 

propriety for the voice of God to be heard ; and 
may be improved into a very advantageous op- 
portunity of begetting or increasing spiritual life. 
— Hammond. 

What is it that promotes the most and the 
deepest thought in the human race? It is not 
learning; it is not the conduct of business; it is 
not even the impulse of the affections. It is suf- 
fering ; and that, perhaps, is the reason why there 
is so much suffering in the world. The angel who 
went down to trouble the waters and to make 
them healing, was not perhaps, entrusted with so 
great a boon as the angel who benevolently in- 
flicted upon the sufferers the disease from which 
they suffered. — Sir Arthur Helps. 

A consideration of the benefit of afflictions 
should teach us to bear them patiently when they 
fall to our lot, and to be thankful to Heaven for 
having planted such barriers around us, to re- 
strain the exuberance of our follies and our 
crimes. 

Let these sacred fences be removed ; exempt 
the ambitious from disappointment, and the guilty 
from remorse ; let luxury go unattended with 
disease, and indiscretion lead into no embarrass- 
ments or distresses ; our vices would range \vi*Ji- 
out control, and the impetuosity of our pasi.ions 
have no bounds ; every family would be hlled 
with strife, every nation with carnage, and a del- 
uge of calamities would break in upon us which 
would produce more misery in a year than is in- 



268 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

flicted by the hand of Providence in a lapse of 
ages. — Robert Hall. 



■ — * 



Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. — 

Galatians, v. 16. 

£>'T?HE house that was so tarnished 
**^ By all that is unclean, 
At length is swept and garnished, 

And yet no guest is seen. 
Oh house that art terrestrial, 

Thou canst not empty be ! 
Has thou no guest celestial, 

Alas, alas for thee ! 

The house that was so tarnished 

By all that is unclean, 
At length is swept and garnished, 

And many a guest is seen. 
Oh house, that art terrestrial, 

Though foes are everywhere, 
Thy guests that are celestial 

Will keep thee pure and fair. 



The poets fable that this was one of the 
labors imposed on Hercules, to make clean the 



REFORM A TION. 209 

Augean stable, or stall rather, for therein, they 
said, were kept three thousand kine, and it had 
not been cleansed for thirty years together. But 
Hercules, by letting the river Alpheus into it, 
did that with ease which before was conceived 
impossible. This stall is the pure emblem of 
my impure soul, which hath been defiled with 
millions of sins, for more than thirty years to- 
gether. Oh, that I might by a lively faith, and 
unfeigned repentance, let the stream of that foun- 
tain into my soul, "which is opened for Judah 
and Jerusalem." It is impossible by all my 
pains to purge out my uncleanness, which is 
quickly done by the rivulet of the blood of my 
Saviour. — Thomas Fuller. 

Lord, I read of my Saviour that when He 
was in the wilderness, "then the devil leaveth 
Him, and behold angels came and ministered 
unto Him." A great change in a little time. 
No twilight betwixt night and day. No purga- 
tory condition betwixt hell and heaven ; but in- 
stantly, when out devil, in angel. Such is the 
case of every solitary soul. It will make com- 
pany for itself. A musing mind will not stand 
neuter a minute, but presently side with legions 
of good or bad thoughts. Grant, therefore, that 
my soul, which ever will have some, may never 
have bad company. — Thomas Fuller. 

There are two ways of dealing with every 
vice that troubles us, in either ourselves or others. 
One is to set to work directly to destroy the 



•270 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

vice ; that is the negative way. The other is 
to bring in as overwhelmingly as possible the 
opposite virtue, and so to crowd and stifle and 
drown out the vice ; that is the positive way. 
Now there can be no doubt about St. Paul. 
Here comes his poor Galatian fighting with his 
lust of the flesh. How shall he kill it? St. 
Paul says not, " Do as few fleshly things as 
you can," setting him out on a course of re- 
pression ; but, " Do just as many spiritual things 
as you can," opening before him the broad 
gate of a life of positive endeavor. And when 
we have thoroughly comprehended the differ- 
ence of those two methods, and seen how dis- 
tinctly St. Paul chose one instead of the other, 
we have laid hold on one of the noblest char- 
acteristics of his treatment of humanity, one that 
he gained most directly from his Lord. I 
should despair of making any one see the dis- 
tinction who did not know it in his own expe- 
rience. Everywhere the negative and the posi- 
tive methods of treatment stand over against 
each other, and men choose between them. 
Here is a man who is beset by doubts, per- 
haps about the very fundamental truths of Chris- 
tianity. He may attack all the objections in turn, 
and at last succeed in proving that Christianity 
is not false. That is negative. Or he may gather 
about him the assurance of all that his religion 
has done and sweep away all his doubts with 
the complet conviction that Christianity is true. 



REFORMATION. 271 

A man has a grudge against you, inveterate and 
strong. You may attack his special grievance 
and try to remove it ; or you may try not to 
show him that you meant him no harm, but 
by laborious kindness that you mean him every 
good, and so soften his obstinacy. A church is 
full of errors and foolish practices. It is possi- 
ble to attack those follies outright, showing 
conclusively how foolish they are ; or it is pos- 
sible, and it is surely better, to wake up the 
true spiritual life in that church, which shall 
itself shed those follies and cast them out, or 
at least rob them of their worst harmfulness. 

It is strange how far and wide this neces- 
sity of choosing between the positive and nega- 
tive method of treatment run^. In matters of 
taste, for instance, there are two distinct ways 
of trying to perfect the tasteful man. One is 
by the repression of what is in bad taste; the 
other is by the earnest fostering of what is 
good, — the method of repression and the method 
of stimulus. And everybody knows that no great 
effect of human genius was ever yet produced 
except in the latter, larger way. A cold and 
hard and limited correctness, a work "faultily 
faultless," weak and petty and timid, is all that 
the other methods make. For, whether in man- 
ners or in art, that which appears at first as 
coarseness is very often the strength of the 
whole work. To repress it for its coarseness is 
to make the whole feeble while we make it 



272 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

fine. To keep its strength and fill its strength 
with fineness, this is the positive method of the 
truest taste. 

We are witnessing constantly the application 
of the same principle to the matter of reform, 
the breaking up of bad habits in an individual 
or in a community. All prohibitory measures 
are negative. That they have their use no one 
can doubt. That they have their limits is just as 
clear. He who thinks that nothing but the moral 
methods for the prevention of intemperance and 
crime can do the work is a mere theorist of the 
closet and knows very little about the actual state 
of human nature. But, on the other hand, the 
man who thinks that any strictest system of pro- 
hibition, most strictly kept in force, could perma- 
nently keep men from drink, or any other vice, 
knows little of human nature either. That nature 
is too active and too live to be kept right by 
mere negations. You cannot kill any one of its 
appetites by merely starving it. You must give 
it its true food, and so only can you draw it off 
from the poison that it covets. Here comes in 
the absolute necessity of providing rational and 
cheap amusements for the people whom our 
philanthropists are trying to draw off from the 
tavern and the gambling - house. Pictures, parks 
museums, libraries, music, a healthier and happier 
religion, a brighter, sunnier tone to all our life, 
— these are the positive powers which must come 
in with every form of prohibition and restraint 



REFORMATION. 273 

before our poorer people can be brought to lead 
a sensible and sober life. Look at the lives that 
our rich people live. It is not any form of pro- 
hibition, legal or social, that keeps them from dis- 
gusting and degrading vice. It is the fulness of 
their lives, the warmth, glow, comfort and abund- 
ance of their homes, the occupation of their 
minds, the positive and not the negative, the in- 
terest and plenty which the poor man never 
knows. Before you or I dare blame him or de- 
spise him, we must, in imagination, empty our 
lives like his, and ask what sort of people we 
should be in the squalor of his garret, and the 
comfortlessness and hopelessness of a lot like his. 
We see the same principle, the superiority of 
the positive to the negative, constantly illustrated 
in matters of opinion. How is it that people 
change their opinions, give up what they have 
steadfastly believed, and come to believe some- 
thing very different, perhaps its very opposite ? 
I think we all have been surprised, if we have 
thought about it, by the very small number of 
cases in which men deliberately abandon positions 
because those positions have been disproved and 
seem to them no longer tenable. And even when 
such cases do occur, the effect is apt to be not 
good, but bad. The man abandons his disproved 
idea, but takes no other in its stead ; until, in 
spite of their better judgment, many good men 
have been brought to feel that, rather than use 
the power of mere negation and turn the be- 



274 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

liever in an error into a believer in nothing, they 
would let their friend go on believing his false- 
hood, since it was better to believe something, 
however stupidly, than to disbelieve everything, 
however shrewdly. But what then ? How do 
men change their opinions? Have you not seen ? 
Holding still their old belief, they come some- 
how into the atmosphere of a clearer and a richer 
faith. That better faith surrounds them, fills them, 
presses on them with its own convincingness. 
They learn to love it, long to receive it, try to 
open their hands and hearts just enough to take 
it in and hold ic along with the old doctrine 
which they have no idea of giving up. They 
think they are holding both. They persuade 
themselves that they have found a way of recon- 
ciling the old and the new, which have been 
thought irreconcilable. Perhaps they go on think- 
ing so all their lives. But perhaps some day 
something startles them, and they awake to find 
that the old is gone, and that the new opinion 
has become their opinion by its own positive 
convincing power. There has been no violence 
in the process, nor any melancholy gap of infidel- 
ity between. . . . 

It seems to me that there is something so 
sublimely positive in Nature. She never kills 
for the mere sake of killing ; but every death is 
but one step in the vast weaving of the web of 
life. She has no process of destruction which, as 
you turn it to the other side and look at it in 



REFORMATION. 275 

what you know to be its truer light, you do not 
see to be a process of construction. She gets 
rid of her wastes by ever new plans of nutri- 
tion. This is what gives her such a courageous, 
hopeful, and enthusiastic look, and makes men 
love her as a mother and not fear her as a 
tyrant. They see by small signs, and dimly feel, 
this positiveness of her workings which it is the 
glory of natural science to reveal more and more. 
— Phillips Brooks. 

It is not so much the being exempt from 
faults, as the having overcome them, that is an 
advantage to us ; it being with the follies of the 
mind as with the weeds of a field, which if de- 
stroyed and consumed upon the place where they 
grow, enrich and improve it more than if none 
had ever sprung there. — Swift. 

He that is deeply engaged in vice is like a 
man laid fast in a bog, who by a faint and lazy 
struggle to get out does but spend his strength 
to no purpose, and sinks himself the deeper into 
it : the only way is by a resolute and vigorous 
effort to spring out, if possible, at once. When 
men are sorely urged and pressed, they find a 
power in themselves which they thought they 
had not. — Tillotson. 

Reform, like charity, must begin at home. 
Once well at home, how will it radiate outwards, 
irrepressible, into all that we touch and handle, 
speak and work ; kindling ever new light by in- 
calculable contagion, spreading, in geometric ratio, 



276 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

far and wide, doing- good only wherever it 
spreads, and not evil. — Carlyle. 

Though few men are likely to be called on to 
take part in the reformation of any public institu- 
tions, yet there is no one of us but what ought 
to engage in the important work of ^^reforma- 
tion, and according to the well-known proverb, 
" If each would sweep before his own door, we 
should have a clean street." Some may have 
more, and some less, of dust and other nuis- 
ances to sweep away ; some of one kind, and 
some of another. But those who have the least 
to do have something to do ; and they should 
feel it an encouragement to do it, that they can 
so easily remedy the beginnings of small evils 
before they have accumulated into a great one. 
Begin reforming, therefore, at once : proceed in 
reforming steadily and cautiously, and go on re- 
forming forever. — Whately. 




nm, 



If^REAT words of love He spoke, 
^^ And each an impulse woke, 
Which through successive ages runs 
And broadens with the suns. 



THE SEVEN WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 

Great words of love were heard, 
Which many a bosom stirred, 
And more and more each circling year 
Have bowed the heart to hear. 

Great words of love come down 
Through ages of renown ! 
The blessed burden that they bear 
Hath nothing here more fair. 

Such words of love to men 
May never be again. 
Help me, as with their spirit shod, 
To do Thy work, O God. 



The seven dying words of our Lord from the 
Cross are usually arranged in the following 
order : 

I. Father, forgive them; for they know not 
what they do. — St. Luke xxiii. 34. 

II. Woman, behold thy son ! . . Behold 
thy mother! — St. John xix. 26, 27. 

III. Verily I say itnto thee, To-day shalt thou 
be with Me in Paradise. — St. Luke xxiii. 43. 

IV. My God, My God, why hast Thou for- 
saken Me? — St. Matthew xxvii. 46; St. Mark 
xv. 34. 

V. / thirst. — St. John xix. 28. 

VI. It is finished. — St. John xix. 30. 

VII. Father, into Thy hands I commend My 
Spirit. — St. Luke xxiii. 46. 



278 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

It is hoped that from these Great Words, in 
connection with the seven subjects which have 
been suggested by them, the reader will derive 
much to teach him both how to live and how to 
die. 



l^gmanm. 



Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. 

St. Luke xxiii. 34. 

,&\ SINFUL heart of mine, 
®^ To melt thee, Love Divine 
Spoke from the Cross the grandest word 
The world has ever heard. 

It was the soul of Love 
Outspanning Heaven above, 
Divine elixir of the world, 
In Jesus' heart impearled. 

From Jesus' heart it flowed 

To seek a new abode 

In many a sinful heart, like mine, 

Which it would make divine. 

Dost know this word Forgive ! 
Through which true life to live ? 



FORGIVENESS. 279 

If not, then Heaven will be too bright 
For thine unhallowed sight ! 



Alas ! If my best Friend, who laid down His 
Life for me were to remember all the instances 
in which I have neglected Him, and to plead 
them against me in judgment, where should I 
hide my guilty head in the day of recompense ? 
I will pray, therefore, for blessings upon my 
friends, even though they cease to be so, and 
upon enemies, though they continue such. — Cow- 

PER. 

Tell us, ye men who are so jealous of right 
and of power, who take sudden lire at every in- 
sult, and suffer the slightest imagination of an- 
other's contempt, or another's unfairness, to chase 
from your bosom every feeling of complacency; 
ye men whom every fancied affront puts in such 
a turbulence of emotion, and in whom every fan- 
cied infringement stirs up the quick and the re- 
sentful appetite for justice, how will you stand the 
rigorous application of that test by which the for- 
given of God are ascertained, even that the spirit 
of forgiveness is in them, and by which it will be 
pronounced, whether you are, indeed the children 
of the Highest, and perfect as your Father in 
Heaven is perfect ? — Dr. Chalmers. 

It is in vain for you to expect, it is impudent 
for you to ask of God forgiveness on your own 
behalf, if you refuse to exercise this forgiving- 
temper with respect to others. — Bishop Hoadly. 



280 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

He that cannot forgive others breaks the 
bridge over which he must pass himself; for 
every man has need to be forgiven. — Lord Her- 
bert. 

Whoever is really brave has always this com- 
fort when he is oppressed, that he knows himself 
to be superior to those who injure him, by for- 
giving it. — Pope. 

The brave only know how to forgive ; it is 
the most refined and generous pitch of virtue 
human nature can arrive at. Cowards have done 
good and kind actions ; Cowards have even 
fought, nay, sometimes conquered ; but a coward 
never forgave — it is not in his nature ; the power 
of doing it flows only from a strength and great- 
ness of soul conscious of its own force and 
security, and above all the little temptations of 
resisting every fruitless attempt to interrupt its 
happiness. — Sterne. 

Nothing is more moving to man than the 
spectacle of reconciliation : our weaknesses are 
thus indemnified, and are not too costly, being 
the price we pay for the hour of forgiveness ; 
and the archangel who has never felt anger, has 
reason to envy the man who subdues it. When 
thou forgivest, the man who has pierced thy 
heart stands to thee in the relation of the sea- 
worm that perforates the shell of the mussel, 
which straightway closes the wound with a pearl. 

— RlCHTER. 

The duty of Christian forgiveness does not 



FOB 01 VENESS. 281 

require you, nor are you allowed, to look on in- 
justice, or any other fault, with indifference, as if 
it were nothing wrong at, all, merely because it is 
you that have been wronged. 

But even where we cannot but censure, in a 
moral point of view, the conduct of those who 
have injured us, we should remember that such 
treatment as may be very fitting for them to re- 
ceive may be very unfitting for us to give. To 
cherish, or to gratify, haughty resentment, is a 
departure from the pattern left to us by Him 
who " endured such contradiction of sinners 
against Himself," not to be justified by any 
offence that can be committed against us. And 
it is this recollection of Him who, faultless Him- 
self, designed to leave us an example of meek- 
ness and long-suffering, that is the true principle 
and motive of Christian forgiveness. We shall 
best fortify our patience under injuries by re- 
membering how much we ourselves have to be 
forgiven, and that it was " while we were yet 
sinners, Christ died for us." Let the Christian, 
therefore, accustom himself to say of anyone who. 
has greatly wronged him, That man owes me an 
hundred pence. An old Spanish writer says, "To 
return evil for good is devilish ; to return good 
for good is human ; but to return good for evil 
is Godlike." — Whately. 

19 



282 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



fqn% 



Woman, behold thy son ! Then saith He to the disciple, 
Behold thy mother ! — St. John xix. 26, 27. 

WJ-REAT, great was Mary's dole, 
^" A sword had pierced her soul! 
But lo, a word of tenderness 
Illumined her distress. 

Out of the heart of Christ 
The word that has sufficed 
Ten thousand times to soften loss, 
Was spoken from the Cross. 

My soul ! the sympathy 

That crowns humanity 

Flows ever from the Saviour's heart; 

And though all hope depart 

Of other help and cheer, 

Still through the darkness here 

There shines a more than earthly light 

To glorify the night. 

Where shall we meet together, but where 
Christ is ? What shall be our bond of union, 
but by the Cross? It is from His Cross that 
this grace flows of fidelity, of mutual love, and 
patience. Virgin purity is there in the blessed 
Mother ; and in the wife of Cleopas the married 



SYMPATHY. 283 

state ; and penitence in Mary Magdalene ; and 
Divine love in St. John, — that in these may be 
represented the fulness of the Church in mutual 
aid and one heart united. And thee, O Blessed 
among women, the Divine word of prophecy hath 
there found. He has become "a sign to be 
spoken against," as foretold, and the "sword is 
in thine own soul;" but there is to be learned 
at the foot of the Cross resignation to the Di- 
vine will, and in deepest agonies the Will of 
God made to be our will. And there, too, even 
now is comfort ; for from whence He says, Be- 
hold thy son ! He is our elder Brother ; from 
henceforth we are as brethren, born, as it were, 
of one and the same mother, and His Father be- 
comes our Father. By His Cross we are all 
made one. There, where we are gathered to- 
gether in His name, is He in the midst of us, 
and speaking to us from the Cross. O, what a 
lively emblem is this of Christian united wor- 
ship, when all the world speak another lan- 
guage, and look on from afar with other eyes, 
not ashamed of Christ Crucified, to hear His 
still small voice speaking to us from His Altar 
of the Cross ! When the tempest, and the earth- 
quake, and the fire have ceased ; when the rage, 
and the tumult, and the fierce flame of perse- 
cution hath been lulled, with this last dying 
voice He speaks to us, exhorting us to love 
one another, as He hath loved us ; and that 
he that doeth the will of God shall be to Him 



284 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

as brother, and sister, and mother. — Isaac 
Williams. 

When I look into the frame and constitution 
of my own mind, there is no part of it which I 
observe with greater satisfaction than that tender- 
ness and concern which it bears for the good and 
happiness of mankind. My own circumstances 
are indeed so narrow and scanty that I should 
taste but very little pleasure could I receive it 
only from those enjoyments which are in my own 
possession ; but by this great tincture of human- 
ity, which I find in all my thoughts and reflec- 
tions, I am happier than any single person can be, 
with all the wealth, strength, beauty and success 
that can be conferred upon a mortal, if he only 
relishes such a proportion of these blessings as 
vested in himself and in his own private prop- 
erty. By this means every man that does him- 
self any real service, does me a kindness. I 
come in for my share in all the good that hap- 
pens to a man of merit and virtue, and par- 
take of many gifts of fortune and power that 
I was never born to. There is nothing in par- 
ticular in which I so much rejoice as the deliver- 
ance of good and generous spirits out of dan- 
gers, difficulties and distresses. — Addison. 

Whenever we are formed by nature to any 
active purpose, the passion which animates us to 
it is attended with delight, or pleasure of some 
kind, let the subject-matter be what it will; and 
as our Creator has designed that we should be 






SYMPATHY. 285 

united by the bond of sympathy, He has 
strengthened that bond by a proportionable de- 
light; and these where our sympathy is most 
wanted, — in the distresses of others. If this 
passion be simply painful, we should shun with 
the greatest care all persons and places that 
could excite such a passion ; as some, who are so 
far gone in indolence as not to endure any 
strong impression, actually do. But the case is 
widely different with the greater part of man- 
kind : there is no spectacle we so eagerly pur- 
sue as that of some uncommon and grievous 
calamity ; so that whether the misfortune is be- 
fore our eyes, or whether they are turned back 
to it in history, it always touches with delight. 
This is not an unmixed delight, but blended with 
no small uneasiness. The delight we have in 
such things hinders us from shunning scenes of 
misery ; and the pain we feel prompts us to re- 
lieve ourselves in relieving those who suffer; 
and all this is antecedent to any reasoning, by 
an instinct that works us to its own purposes 
without our concurrence.— Burke. 

Every man rejoices twice when he has a 
partner of his joy ; a friend shares my sorrow 
and makes it but a moiety ; but he swells my 
joy and makes it double. For so two channels 
divide the river, and lessen it into rivulets, and 
make it fordable, and apt to be drunk up by 
the first revels of the Sirian star ; but two 
torches do not divide but increase the flame : 



286 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



and though my tears are the sooner dried up 
when they run on my friend's cheeks in the fur- 
rows of compassion, yet when my flame hath 
kindled his lamp we unite the glories and make 
them radiant, like the golden candlesticks that 
burn before the throne of God, because they 
shine by numbers, by unions, and confederations 
of light and joy. — Jeremy Taylor. 

Let us cherish sympathy. By attention and 
exercise it may be improved in every man. It 
prepares the mind for receiving the impressions 
of virtue : and without it there can be no true 
politeness. Nothing is more odious than that 
insensibility which wraps a man up in himself 
and his own concerns, and prevents his being 
moved with either the joys or the sorrows of 
another. — Beattie. 

We must not make too much of sympathy, as 
mere feeling. We do in things spiritual as we do 
with hot-house plants. The feeble exotic, beautiful 
to look at, but useless, has costly sums spent on it. 
The hardy oak, a nation's strength, is permitted 
to grow, scarcely observed, in the fence and 
copses. We prize feeling, and praise its posses- 
sor. But feeling is only a sickly exotic in itself, 
— a passive quality, having in it nothing moral — 
no temptation, and no victory. A man is no 
more a good man for having feeling than he is 
for having a delicate ear for music, or a far-see- 
ing optic nerve. The Son of Man had feeling; 
He could be " touched." The tear would start 



SYMPATHY. 287 

from His eyes at the sight of human sorrow. 
But that sympathy was no exotic in His soul, 
beautiful to look at, too delicate for use. Feel- 
ing with Him led to this : ,( He went about 
doing good." Sympathy with Him was this : 
" Grace to help in time of need." . . . 

He who would sympathize must be content to 
be tried and tempted. There is a hard and 
boisterous rudeness in our hearts by nature, which 
requires to be softened down. We pass by suf- 
fering gayly, carelessly ; not in cruelty, but un- 
feelingly, just because we do not know what suf- 
fering is. We wound men by our looks and our 
abrupt expressions without intending it, because 
we have not been taught the delicacy, and the 
tact, and the gentleness, which can only be learnt 
by the wounding of our own sensibilities. There 
is a haughty feeling in uprightness which has 
never been on the verge of fall, that requires 
humbling. There is an inability to enter into 
difficulties of thought, which marks the mind to 
which all things have been presented super- 
ficially, and which has never experienced the 
horror of feeling the ice of doubt crashing be- 
neath the feet. 

Therefore, if you aspire to be a son of con- 
solation ; if you would partake of the priestly 
gift of sympathy ; if you would pour something 
beyond common-place consolation into a tempted 
heart; if you would pass through the intercourse 
of daily life with the delicate tact which never 



288 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

inflicts pain ; if to that most acute of human ail- 
ments, mental doubt, you are ever to give effec- 
tual succor, — you must be content to pay the 
price of the costly education. Like Him, you 
must suffer — being tempted. — F. W. Robertson. 



IsjFttm! 



mtt. 



To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. — St. Luke xxiii. 43. 

^K^UT of the depth of woe 
e * S9 " Which He Himself did know, 
Compassion for the thief arose : 
What love did it disclose? 

It was Almighty Love 

Descended from above, 

That sometimes reacheth down, down, down, 

And lifteth to a crown ! 

My Saviour crucified ! 

No penitence e'er cried 

To Him, but some assuring voice 

Did make the heart rejoice. 



Down, down, all earthly pride, 
Before the Crucified ! 






REPENTANCE. 289 

To be with Him in Paradise, 
Meek heart, arise ! arise ! 

The sight of a penitent on his knees is a 
spectacle which moves heaven ; and the compas- 
sionate Redeemer, who when he beheld Saul in 
that situation, exclaimed, Behold, he prayeth, will 
not be slow nor reluctant to strengthen you by 
His might and console you by His Spirit. When 
a new and living way is opened into the holiest 
of all, by the blood of Jesus, not to avail our- 
selves of it, not to arise and go to our Father, 
but to prefer remaining at a guilty distance, en- 
compassed with famine, to the rich and everlast- 
ing provisions of His house, will be a source of 
insupportable anguish when we shall see Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob enter into the kingdom of 
God, and ourselves shut out. You are probably 
not aware of what importance it is to improve 
these sacred visitations ; have not considered that 
they form a crisis which, if often neglected, will 
never ntu n. It is impossible too often to incul- 
cate the momentous truth, that the character is 
not formed by passive impressions, but by volun- 
tary actions, and that we shall be judged hereaf- 
ter, not by what we have felt, but by what we 
have done. — Robert Hall. 

A death - bed repentance ought not indeed to 
be neglected, because it is the last thing that we 
can do. — Atterbury. 

Some well - meaning Christians tremble for 



290 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

their salvation, because they have never gone 
through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which 
they have been taught to consider as an ordeal 
that must be passed through before they can ar- 
rive at regeneration : to satisfy such minds it 
may be observed that the slightest sorrow for sin 
is sufficient if it produce amendment, and that 
the greatest is insufficient if it do not. There- 
fore, by their own fruits let them prove them- 
selves : for some soils will take the good seed 
without being watered with tears or harrowed up 
by affliction — Colton. 

Before repentance, we think well of ourselves 
and lightly of the Redeemer. We love sin and 
folly, and dislike the restraints which the Divine 
law imposes on the gratification of our appetites 
and inclinations. We devote our hearts, and 
with them our thoughts, and time, and substance, 
to the lust of the flesh,' and the lust of the eye, 
and the pride of life, without any dread of the 
Divine condemnation. We are not sorry for our 
transgressions ; we do not confess them before 
God ; we drive away all thoughts of a future 
state. We do not feel disposed to seek the 
Lord : His Word is a wearisome study to us : 
His Gospel is repulsive to our taste : His service 
is dull and disgusting: and instead of desiring 
His blessing above all things, the most common 
toils and vainest amusements of the world seem 
far better in our eyes than all the enjoyments 
religion can bestow. 



FORSAKEN. 291 

But when repentance seizes on the soul, the 
heart is changed. That is, the sinner begins to 
love what before he hated, and to hate what be- 
fore he loved. He sees his own character in a 
new light, he judges his conduct by a new stand- 
ard, and he feels himself condemned under the 
righteous judgment of his Maker. He now ap- 
proves and loves the law of God ; he confesses 
and abhors his own iniquity ; he is ready to give 
up his sinful indulgencies, and foolish pleasures ; 
he is anxious to have pardon and forgiveness at 
the hands of the Almighty; he is prompt to be- 
lieve in the Redeemer with his whole heart ; and 
offers up, with earnest simplicity, the publican's 
prayer, ' God be merciful to me a sinner.' 
Death, and judgment, and eternity, are now fre- 
quent in his thoughts ; and he feels that all his 
hope must be placed on the obedience and 
atonement of Christ, and all his joys drawn 
from the fountain of the Gospel. — Bishop Hop- 
kins. 



■G2£3©^9^ — 



l|ar$dbtt + 



My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? 

— St. Matthew xxviii. 46. 



|jmH darkness as of death 
^^ Where none delivereth ! 



292 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Oh wine - press of the wrath of God 
In that great darkness trod ! 

Oh grief too great to paint ! 

Oh troubled, burdened Saint 

On whom the sins of all the world 

Are as a mountain hurled ! 

His sight has grown so dim 

God has forsaken Him ! 

Forsakes He God? My God! His cry. 

All hope is in that My, 

He clings to God through all 

The wormwood and the gall, 

He clings through all the strife of blood, 

Triumphant Lamb of God! 



What, in truth was the unutterable desolation 
of our Blessed Lord at that moment, we know- 
not. Whether the bitterness of the Cup which 
He had prayed might pass from Him, if such 
should be His Father's will, was condensed into 
that hour of loneliness unspeakable, we may not 
dare to say ; but each of us may receive for him- 
self a thought of comfort, little understood, it 
may be, in the bright hopefulness of youth, but 
ready to return, in future years, in hours of pain 
and weakness. Depression of mind and spiritual 
desertion are no proofs of the rejection of God. 
Rather, like bodily sufferings, they form part of 
that resemblance to our Redeemer, which will, 



FORSAKEN. 293 

for His sake, render us more acceptable to our 
Heavenly Father. 

Who shall dread the bed of pain, when Jesus 
hung upon the Cross of agony ? or who shall 
fear to trust his soul to God, even when the 
heart is parched and dry, and every holier 
thought is for the moment lost in the conscious- 
ness of suffering, since even the Only-begotten 
Son of the Eternal Father could exclaim in the 
greatness of His misery, " My Cod, My God, why 
hast Thou forsaken me ? " — Miss Sewell. 

Weigh well that cry ; consider it well, and 
tell me if ever there were cry like that of His. 
. . . The Powers of Darkness let loose to 
afflict Him, — the influence of comfort restrained 
from relieving Him, — never was there sorrow 
like unto His sorrow ! It cannot be expressed as 
it should, and as other things may. In silence 
we may admire it, but all our words will not 
reach it. — Bishop Andrews. 

Now, observe, this feeling of forsakeness is no 
proof of being forsaken. Mourning after an ab- 
sent God is an evidence of love as strong as re- 
joicing in a present One. Nay, further, a man 
may be more decisively the servant of God and 
goodness while doubting His existence, and in the 
anguish of his soul crying for light, than while 
resting in a common creed, and coldly serving 
Him. There has been one, at least, whose appa- 
rent forsakeness, and whose seeming doubt bears 
the stamp of the majesty of Faith. " My God, 
my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " . . . 



294 WEALS OF LIFE. 

There are times when a dense cloud veils the 
sunlight ; you cannot see the sun, nor feel him. 
Sensitive temperaments feel depression, and that 
unaccountably and irresistibly. No effort can 
make you feel. Then you hope. Behind the 
cloud the sun is ; from thence he will come ; the 
day drags through, the darkest and longest night 
ends at last. Thus we bear the darkness and the 
otherwise intolerable cold, and many a sleepless 
night. It does not shine now, but it will. So, 
too, spiritually. 

There are hours in which physical derange- 
ment darkens the windows of the soul ; days in 
which shattered nerves make life simply endu- 
rance ; months and years in which intellectual 
difficulties, pressing for solution, shut out God. 
Then faith must be replaced by hope. " What I 
do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know 
hereafter." Clouds and darkness are round about 
Him ; but Righteousness and Truth are the habi- 
tation of His throne. " My soul, hope thou in 
God ; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the 
health of my countenance and my God." 

The mistake we make is to look for a source 
comfort in ourselves: self- contemplation, instead 
of gazing upon God. In other words, we look 
for comfort precisely where comfort never can be. 

For, first, it is impossible to derive consola- 
tion from our own feelings, because of their im- 
utability : to-day we are well, and our spiritual 
experience, partaking of these circumstances, is 



FORSAKEN. 295 

bright; but to-morrow some outward circumstances 
change, — the sun does not shine, or the wind is 
chill, — and we are low, gloomy, and sad. Then, 
if our hopes were unreasonably elevated, they will 
now be unreasonably depressed and so our ex- 
perience becomes flux and reflux, ebb and flow, 
like the sea, that emblem of instability. 

Next, it is impossible to get comfort from our 
own acts : for, though acts are the test of charac- 
ter, yet in a low state no man can judge justly 
of his own acts. They assume a darkness of 
hue which is reflected on them by the eye that 
contemplates them. It would be well for all men 
to remember that sinners cannot judge of sin, — 
least of all can we estimate our own sin. 

Besides, we lose time in remorse, I have 
sinned. — Well, by the grace of God I must en- 
deavor to do better for the future. But if I 
mourn for it overmuch, all to - day refusing to be 
comforted, to-morrow I shall have to mourn the 
wasted to-day; and that again will be the sub- 
ject of another fit of remorse. 

In the wilderness, had the children of Israel, 
instead of gazing on the serpent, looked down 
on their own wounds, to watch the process of 
the granulation of the flesh, and see how deep 
the wound was, and whether it was healing 
slowly or fast, cure would have been impossible; 
their only chance was to look off the wounds. 
Just so, when, giving up this hopeless and sick- 
ening work of self- inspection, and turning from 



296 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

ourselves in Christian self-oblivion, we gaze on 
God, then first the chance of consolation dawns. 
He is not affected by our mutability; our 
changes do not alter Him. When we are rest- 
less, He remains serene and calm; when we are 
low, selfish, mean, or dispirited, He is still the 
unalterable I am, — the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever, in whom is no variableness, neither 
shadow of turning. What God is in Himself, — 
not what we may chance to feel Him in this or 
that moment to be, — that is our hope. "My 
soul, hope thou in God." — F. W. Robertson. 



jSfirilurtlpl. 



I thirst. — St. Jomh xix. 28. 



W THIRST, the Saviour cried, 

°^ Before He bowed and died. 

That thirst went quivering through the whole 

Qf the Eternal Soul. 

He thirsted for the day 

When sin shall pass away, 

The day that endeth human thrall 

When. God is all in all. 



SPIRITUAL THIRST. 297 

This more than earthly word 

Unnumbered souls hath stirred. 

What is the thirst that nlleth mine? 
Is it the thirst divine ? 

Oh, had we all the thirst 

In which the Christ was first, 

Then Duty, Truth, and Life were one, 

Like Father, Spirit, Son. 

Our Saviour, as He hung on the Cross, un- 
doubtedly experienced, as anyone else might have 
done, a real physical thirst ; but in satisfying it, 
in some sort, by means of the vinegar offered in 
genuine kindness by the Roman soldiers, He sat- 
isfied also a spiritual thirst — the thirst which be- 
longs to everyone who is intent on doing the 
will of God, manifested in the way of His Prov- 
idence. The former was the shadow, the latter 
the substance : the one temporal, the other eter- 
nal. . 

A draught was twice offered to Him ; once 
it was accepted, once it was refused. That which 
was refused was the medicated potion, — wine 
mingled with myrrh, — the intention of which was 
to deaden pain, and therefore when it was pre- 
sented to the Saviour it was rejected. And the 
reason commonly assigned for that seems to be 
the true one ; the Son of Man would not meet 
death in a state of stupefaction. He chose to 
meet His God awake. There are two ways in 

20 



298 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

which pain may be struggled with, — through the 
flesh and through the Spirit ; the one is the office 
of the physician, the other that of the other that 
of the Christian. The physician's care is at once 
to deaden pain, either by insensibility or specifics; 
the Christian's object is to deaden pain by pa- 
tience. We dispute not the value of the physi- 
cian's remedies, — in their way they are permissible 
and valuable ; but yet, let it be observed that in 
these there is nothing moral ; they may take 
away the venom of the serpent's sting, but they 
do not give the courage to plant the foot upon 
the serpent's head and to bear the pain without 
flinching. Therefore, the Redeemer refused be- 
cause it was not through the flesh, but through 
the Spirit, that He would conquer; to have 
accepted the anodyne would have been to escape 
from suffering, but not to conquer it. But the 
vinegar or sour wine was accepted as a refresh- 
ing draught, for it would seem that He did not 
look upon the value of suffering as consisting in 
this, that He should make it as exquisite as pos- 
sible, but rather that He should not suffer one 
drop of the cup of agony which His Father had 
put into His hand to trickle down the side un- 
tasted. Neither would He make to Himself one 
drop more of suffering than His Father had 
given. 

There are books on the value of pain ; they 
tell us that of two kinds of food, the one pleas- 
ant and the other nauseous, we are to choose the 



SPIRITUAL THIRST. 299 

nauseous one. Let a lesson on this subject be 
learnt from the example of our Divine Master. 

To suffer pain for others without flinching, 
— that is our Master's example ; but pain, for 
the mere sake of pain, that is not Christian ; to 
accept poverty in order to do good for others, 
that is our Saviour's principle ; but to become 
poor for the sake and merit of being poor, is but 
selfishness after all. 

Our Lord refused the anodyne that would 
have made the cup untasted which His Father 
had put into His hand to drink, but He would 
not taste one drop more than His Father gave 
Him. Yet He did not refuse the natural solace 
which His Father's hand had placed before Him. 

There are some who urge, most erroneously, 
the doctrine of discipline and self-denial. If of 
two ways one is disagreeable, they will choose it, 
just because it is disagreeable ; because food is 
pleasant and needful, they will fast. There is in 
this a great mistake. To deny self for the sake 
of duty is right, — to sacrifice life and interests 
rather than principle is right ; but self-denial for 
mere sake of self-denial, torture for torture's 
sake, is neither good nor Christ-like. Remember, 
He drank the cooling beverage in the very mo- 
ment of the sacrifice ; the value of which did not 
consist in its being made as intensely painful as 
possible, but in His not flinching from the pain, 
when Love and Duty said, Endure. — F. W. Rob- 
ertson. 



300 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



Jftfe's iomjtloliom 



When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is fin- 
ished : and He bowed His head, and gave up the u;host. 

— St. John xix. 30. 

FINISHED, what prophets told 
*££> Concerning Thee of old, 
The beautiful in word and deed 
Almighty God decreed ! 

Finished, O King of kings, 
Unutterable things 
Thy loving kindness deigns to show 
Thy servants here below ! 

Finished, the Sacrifice 

Which opens Paradise, 

And to the wanderer makes plaiu 

How to return again ! 

Finished, O Christ, the strife 
Of Thy victorious life, 
Which is forever Truth's one way 
Unto Eternal Day! 



Our Master said, " It is finished," partly for 
others, partly for Himself. In the earliest part of 
His life, we read that He said, " I have a bap- 
tism to be baptized with ; " to Him, as to every 
human soul, this life had its side of darkness and 



LIFE'S COMPLETION. 301 

gloom, but all that was now accomplished : He 
had drunk his last earthly drop of Anguish, He 
has to drink the wine no more till He drink it 
new in His Father's kingdom. It was finished ; 
all was over ; and with, as it were, a burst of 
subdued joy, He says, "It is finished." 

There is another aspect in which we may 
regard these words, as spoken for others. The 
way in which our Redeemer contemplated this 
life was altogether a peculiar one. He looked 
upon it, not as a place of rest or pleasure, but 
simply, solely, as a place of duty. He was here 
to do His Father's will, not His own; and there- 
fore, now that life was closed, He looked upon 
it chiefly as a duty that was fulfilled. We have 
the meaning of this in the seventh chapter of 
this Gospel : " I have glorified Thee on earth, 
I have finished the work which Thou gavest me 
to do." The duty is done, the work is finished. 
Let us each apply this to ourselves. That hour 
is coming to us all ; indeed, it is, perhaps, now 
come. The dark night settles down on each 
day. 

" It is finished." We are ever taking leave 
of something that will not come back again. 
We let go, with a pang, portion after portion 
of our existence. However dreary we may have 
felt life to be here, yet when that hour comes 
— the winding up of all things, the last grand 
rush of darkness on our spirits, the hour of that 
awful and sudden wrench from all we have ever 



302 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

known or loved, the long farewell to sun, moon, 
stars, and light, — Brother men, 1 ask you this 
day, and I ask myself, humbly and fearfully, 
What will be finished? When it is finished, 
what will it be ? Will it be the butterfly ex- 
istence of pleasure, the mere life of science, a 
life of uninterrupted sin and selfish gratification; 
or will it be, " Father, I have finished the work 
which Thou gavest me to do." — F. W. Robert- 
son. 

The Incarnation is the perpetual interpretation 
of our life. Jesus cries, " It is finished," on His 
Cross, and at once it is evident that that finishing 
is but a beginning ; that it is a breaking to 
pieces of the temporal, that it may be lost in 
the eternal ! That Cross is the perpetual glori- 
fication of the shortness of life. In its light we, 
too, can stand by the departing form of our own 
life, or of some brother's life, and say, " It is 
finished," and know that the finishing -is really 
a beginning. The temporary is melting away 
like a cloud in the sky, that the great total sky 
may all be seen. The form in which the man 
has lived is decaying, that the real life of the 
man may be apparent. The fashion of this 
world is passing away ; the episode, the acci- 
dent of earth is over, that the spiritual reality 
may be clear. It is in the light of the Cross 
that the exquisite picture of Shelley, who tried 
so hard to be heathen and would still be Chris- 
tian in his own despite, is really realized, — 



LIFE'S COMPLETION. 303 

"The one remains, the many change and pass; 

Heaven's light forever thines; earth's shadows fly; 
Life, like a dome of many - colored glass, 

Stains the white radiance of eternity, 
Until death tramples it to fragments." 

And so, what is there to be done? What 
could be clearer? Only to him 'who realizes 
eternity does the short human life really seem 
short and give out of its shortness its true sol- 
emnity and blessing. It is only by binding my- 
self to eternity that I can know the shortness 
of time. But how shall I bind myself to eter- 
nity except by giving myself to Him who is 
eternal in obedient love ? Obedient love ! Lov- 
ing obedience ! That is what binds the soul of 
the less to the soul of the greater everywhere. 
I give myself to the Eternal Christ, and in His 
eternity I find my own. In His service I am 
bound to Him, and the shortness of that life, 
whose limitations in any way shut me out from 
Him, becomes an inspiration, not a burden to 
men. Oh, my dear friends, you who with Chris- 
tian faith have seen a Christian die, tell me was 
not this short life then revealed to you in all its 
beauty? Did you not see completely that no life 
was too long which Christ had filled with the 
gift and knowledge of Himself ; no life was too 
short which departed from the earth only to go 
and be with Him in Heaven forever ? — Phillips 
Brooks. 

If length of days be thy portion, make it not 
thy expectation. Reckon not upon long life ; 



304 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

think .^very day the last, and live always beyond 
thy account. He that so often survives his ex- 
pectations lives many lives, and will scarce com- 
plain of the shortness of his days. Time past is 
gone like a shadow ; make time to come pres- 
ent. Approximate thy latter times by present 
apprehensions of them ; be like a neighbor unto 
the grave, and think there is but little time to 
come. And since there is something of us that 
will still live on, join both lives together and live 
in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth 
the purposes of this life will never be far from 
the next; and is in some manner already in it' 
by a happy conformity and close apprehension of 
it. — Sir Thomas Browne 

They who are most weary of life, and yet 
are most unwilling to die, are such who have 
lived to no purpose, — who have rather breathed 
than lived. — Earl of Clarendon. 

The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, 
and drink, and sleep. — to be exposed to dark- 
ness and the light, — to pace round in the mill of 
habit, and turn thought into an implement of 
trade, — this is not life In all this but a poor 
fraction of the consciousness of humanity is 
awakened ; and the sanctities will slumber which 
make it worth while to be. Knowledge, truth, 
love, beauty, goodness, faith, alone can give vital- 
ity to the mechanism of existence The laugh of 
mirth that vibrates through the heart; the tears 
that freshen the dry wastes within ; the music 



LIFE'S COMPLETION. 305 

that brings childhood back ; the prayer that calls 
the future near; the doubt which makes us med- 
itate; the death which startles us with mystery; 
the hardship which forces us to struggle ; the 
anxiety which ends in trust; are the true nour- 
ishment of our natural being. — James Martineau. 

Every man is to himself what Plato calls the 
Great Year. He has his sowing time, his grow- 
ing time, his weeding, his irrigating, and his har- 
vest. The principles and the ideas he puts into 
his mind in youth lie there, it may be, for many 
years, apparently unprolific. But nothing dies. 
There is a process going on unseen, and by the 
touch of circumstances the man springs forth into 
strength, he knows not why, as if by a miracle. 
But, after all, he only reaps as he had sown. — J. 
A. St. John. 

The end of life is to be like unto God ; and 
the soul following God will be like unto Him : 
He being the beginning, the middle, and end of 
all things. — Socrates. 

Life's evening, we may rest assured, will take 
its character from the day which has preceded it ; 
and if we would close our career in the comfort 
of religious hope, we must prepare for it by 
early and continuous religious habit. — Bishop 
Shuttleworth. 



3U6 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



1*4 



Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit. — 3t. Luke xxiii. 46. 

^LORY to Christ I give, 
^- 5 Who taught me how to live. 
With grateful heart to Him I cry, 
Who taught me how to die. 

Through Thee, dear Lord of Life, 
All girded for the strife, 
I know that over every sin 
A triumph I may win. 

Through Thee, dear Lord of Death, 
Who with Thy latest breath 
Thy spirit didst to God commend, 
That one unfailing Friend, 

I know, I know that I 

May gain the victory, 

And enter Heaven through that last foe 

Whom I shall meet below. 



" Into Thy hands," that is sufficient. It is as 
well to look at these things as simply as possi- 
ble. Do not confuse the mind with attempting 
to draw the distinction between the human and 
the Divine. He speaks here as if His human 
soul, like ours, entered into the dark unknown, 



DEATH. 307 

not seeing what was to be in the Hereafter : and 
this is Faith, or, if it were not so, there arises 
an idea from which we shrink, as if He were 
speaking words He did not feel. We know 
nothing of the world beyond, we are like chil- 
dren ; even revelation has told us almost nothing 
concerning this, and an inspired Apostle says, 
" We know not yet what we shall be." Then 
rises Faith and dares to say, " My Father, I know 
nothing, but, be where I may, still I am with 
Thee." " Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." 
Therefore, and only therefore, do we dare to die. 
— F. W. Robertson. 

Take away but the pomps of death, the dis- 
guises and solemn bugbears, and the actings by 
candlelight, and proper and fantastic ceremonies, 
the minstrels and the noise-makers, the women 
and the weepers, the swoonings and the shriek- 
ings, the nurses and the physicians, the dark 
room and the ministers, the kindred and the 
watches, and then to die is easy, ready, and 
quitted from its troublesome circumstances. It is 
the same harmless thing that a poor shepherd 
suffered yesterday, or a maid-servant to-day ; and 
at the same time in which you die, in that very 
night a thousand creatures die with you, some 
wise men and many fools ; and the wisdom of 
the first will not quit him, and the folly of the 
latter does not make him unable to die. — Jeremy 
Taylor. 

From what I have observed, and what I have 



308 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

heard those persons say whose professions lead 
them to the dying, I am induced to infer that the 
fear of death is not common, and that where it 
exists it proceeds rather from a diseased and en- 
feebled mind than from any principle in our na- 
ture. Certain it is that among the poor the ap- 
proach of dissolution is usually regarded with a 
quiet and natural composure which it is consola- 
tory to contemplate, and which is as far removed 
from the dead palsy of unbelief as it is from the 
delirious raptures of fanaticism. Theirs is a true, 
unhesitating faith, and they are willing to lay 
down the burden of a weary life, " in the sure and 
certain hope " of a blessed immortality. — Southey. 
Of the great number to whom it has been my 
painful professional duty to have administered in 
the last hour of their lives, I have sometimes felt 
surprised that so few have appeared reluctant to 
go to "the undiscovered country from whose 
bourn no traveller returns." Many, we may 
easily suppose, have manifested this willingness to 
die from an impatience of suffering, or from that 
passive indifference which is sometimes the result 
of debility and bodily exhaustion. But I have 
seen those who have arrived at a fearless con- 
templation of the future, from faith in the doc- 
trine which our religion teaches. Such men were 
not only calm and supported but cheerful, in the 
hour of death ; and I never quitted such a sick- 
chamber without a hope that my last end might 
be like theirs. — Sir Henry Halford. 



DEATH. 309 

Death comes equally to us all, and makes us 
all equal when he comes. The ashes of an oak 
in a chimney are no epitaph of that, to tell me 
how high or how large that was ; it tells me not 
what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what 
men it hurt when it fell. The dust of great per- 
sons' graves is speechless, too ; it says nothing, 
it distinguishes nothing. As soon the dust of a 
wretch whom thou wouldst not, as of a prince 
whom thou couldst not, look upon, will trouble 
thine eyes if the wind blows it thither; and 
when a whirlwind hath blown the dust of the 
church-yard into the church, and the man sweeps 
out the dust of the church into the church-yard, 
who will undertake to sift those again, and to 
to pronounce, " This is the patrician, this is the 
noble flower, and this is the yeoman, this is the 
plebeian bran ? " — Donne. 

It is an impressive task to follow the steps 
of the chemist, and with fire, and capsule, and 
balance in hand, as he tracks the march of the 
conqueror, Death,' through the domain of vital 
structure. 

The moralist warns us that life is but the 
ante-chamber of death ; that as, on the first day 
of life, the foot is planted on the lowest of a 
range of steps, which man scales painfully only 
to arrive at the altar of corporeal death. The 
chemist comes to proclaim that, from infancy to 
old age, the quantity of earthy matter continually 
increases. Earth asserts her supremacy more 



310 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

and more, and calls us more loudly to the dust. 
In the end a Higher Will interposes, the bond of 
union is unloosed, the immortal soul wings its 
flight upward to the Giver of all Being. Earth 
claims its own, and a little heap of ashes returns 
to dust. It was a man. It is now dust; our 
ashes are scattered abroad to the winds over the 
surface of the earth. But this dust is not inac- 
tive. It rises to walk the earth again ; perhaps 
to aid in peopling the globe with fresh forms of 
beauty, to assist in the performance of the vital 
processes of the universe, to take a part in the 
world's life. In this sense the words of Goethe 
are strictly applicable, — " Death is the parent of 
life." — Household Words. 

Death may be said with almost equal propri- 
ety to confer as well as to level all distinctions. 
In consequence of that event, a kind of chemical 
operation takes place ; for those characters which 
were mixed with the gross particles of vice, by- 
being thrown into the alembic of flattery, are sub- 
limated into the essence of virtue. He who dur- 
ing the performance of his part upon the stage 
of the world was little if at all applauded, after 
the close of the drama, is portrayed as the favor- 
ite of " every virtue under Heaven." — Henry 
Kett. 

When a friend is carried to his grave we at 
once find excuses for every weakness and pallia- 
tion of every fault ; recollect a thousand endear- 
ments which before glided off our minds without 



DEATH. 311 

impression, a thousand favors unrepaid, a thou- 
sand duties unperformed, and wish, vainly 
wish, for his return, not so much that we may 
receive as that we may bestow happiness, and 
recompense that kindness which before we never 
understood. 

There is not, perhaps, to a mind well- 
instructed, a more painful occurrence than the 
death of one whom we have injured without repa- 
ration. Our crime seems now irretrievable ; it is 
indelibly recorded, and the stamp of fate is fixed 
upon it. We consider, with the most afflictive 
anguish, the pain which we have given and now 
cannot alleviate, and the losses which we have 
caused and now cannot repair. — Dr. Johnson. 

It (the grave) buries every error, — covers 
every defect, — extinguished every resentment. 
From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond 
regrets and tender recollections. Who can look 
down upon the grave of an enemy and not feel 
a compunctious throb that he should have warred 
with the poor handful of dust that lies moulder- 
ing before him ? — Washington Irving. 

It is impossible that anything so natural, so 
necessary, and so universal as death should ever 
have been designed by Providence as an evil to 
mankind. — Swift. 

Death is the liberator of him whom freedom 
cannot release, the physician of him whom med- 
icine cannot cure, and the comforter of him 
whom time cannot console. — Colton. 



312 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

What is death but a ceasing to be what we 
were before? We are kindled and put out, we 
die, daily ; nature that begot us expels us, and a 
better and a safer place is provided for us. — 
Seneca. 

A wise man shall not be deprived of pleasure 
even when death shall summons him ; forasmuch 
as he has attained the delightful end of the best 
life, — departing like a guest full and well satis- 
fied ; having received life upon trust and duly 
discharged that office, he acquits himself at de 
parting. — Epicurus. 

He that always waits upon God is ready 
whenever He calls. Neglect not to set your 
accounts : he is a happy man who so lives as 
that death at all times may find him at leisure 
to die. — Feltham. 

Let us beg of God that, when the hour of 
our rest is come, the patterns of our dissolution 
may be Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and David, who, 
leisurably ending their lives in peace, prayed for 
the mercies of God upon their posterity. — 
Hooker. 

There is nothing, no, nothing, innocent or 
good, that dies and is forgotten : let us hold to 
that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, 
dying in its cradle will live again in the better 
thoughts of those who loved it, and play its part, 
through them, in the redeeming actions of the 
world, though its body be burnt to ashes, or 
drowned in the deepest sea. There is not an 



DEATH. 313 

angel added to the host of heaven but does its 
blessed work on earth in those that loved it 
here. Forgotten ! oh if the good deeds of human 
creatures could be traced to their source, how 
beautiful would even death appear! for how 
much charity, mercy, and purified affection would 
be seen to have their growth in dusty graves ! 
— Dickens. 

When we are under affliction for the death 
of a person who was dear to us, or for any 
other misfortune which befalls us, we ought not 
to seek for consolation in ourselves, or in other 
men, or in any part of the creation, but we 
ought to seek it in God alone. And the rea- 
son of this is, that no created being is the first 
cause of those accidents which we call afflictions. 
But the providence of God being the true and 
only cause, the sovereign,* and the disposer of 
them, we ought, undoubtedly, to repair immedi- 
ately to their source, and look up to their Author 
to find solid consolation. . . . 

One of the most solid and useful charities we 
can perform toward the dead, is to do chat which 
they would desire of us, were they still in the 
world ; and to put ourselves, for their sakes, into 
that condition which they now wish us to be 
in. . . . 

It is one of the grand principles of Christi- 
anity, that whatever happened to Jesus Christ, is 
likewise to take place in the soul and body of 
every Christian ; that as Jesus Christ suffered in 

21 



314 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

this mortal life, was raised to a new life, and 
ascended into heaven, where He sat down at the 
right hand of God the Father ; so the body and 
soul are to suffer, to die, to be raised again, and 
to ascend into heaven. . . . 

Let us then view death in Jesus Christ ; not 
without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is 
dreadful, it is detestable, it is the terror of na- 
ture. In Jesus Christ, it is altogether different ; 
it is amiable, holy, and the joy of the believer. 
Every thing, even death itself, is rendered sweet 
in Jesus Christ; and it was for this He suffered; 
He died to sanctify death and suffering to us. 
And as He was God and man, He was all that 
was great and all that was abject, that He might 
sanctify all things in Himself, except sin, and 
might be an example to us in every possible 
condition, — Pascal. 



#«! 



1 



,»*e& 



I am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth in me, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live : And whosoever liveth, and believeth in 
me, shall never die. — St. John xi. 25-36. 

We abide in Him and He in us, and He abides forever. — Brooke. 

In every-day existence the miraculous and the God-like rule us. 

— F. W. Robertson. 

Choose well; your choice 
Is brief and yet endless. 

— Goethe. 

I desire nothing, I press nothing upon you, but to make the most of 
human life, and to aspire after perfection in whatever state of life you 
choose. — Law. 

Whatever is doubtful this at least is sure, that good must conquer, 
because God is good; that evil must perish, because God hates evil, 
even to the death. — Charles Kingsley. 



(316) 



>mmtr 



Ought not Christ to have suffeied these things, and to enter into 
His glory ? — St. Luke xxiv. 26. 

AY and night I yearn for the immortal, 
Thinking of what is and is to be : 
Through the cloud and sun to yonder portal 
Long and weary is the way I see. 

Like the giants of the Tower of Babel, 

Am I vexed with immortality, 
Building, building, as if I were able 

Through myself to solve the mystery ? 

I sometimes in painful silence wonder 
How can mortal climb to such delight! 

'Life there is above me, life, too, under, — 
Am I fixed forever in Thy sight ? 

All the issues are with Thee, O Father ! 

In Thy hand alone I see the crown : 
If I from my pride success would gather, 

In Thy mercy Thou wilt cast me down. 

(317) 



318 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

In humility the Master builded, 

And His Temple, rising height on height, 
With eternal sunshine soon was gilded, 

Bringing immortality to light. 

O for grace and meekness of the Master, 
God to see in all that comes to me! 

Building then, shall I escape disaster, 
And be soothed with immortality. 

And the suffering that comes from duty, 
Little as in human eyes or much, 

Will at length become eternal beauty, 

Glorious fruit of God's transforming touch. 



The natural man dies hard within us ; the man 
from Heaven is not born without a pang; first 
the Anguish, then the Joy. Are our souls wil- 
ling, yea, are they able, to endure that anguish, 
ardently as we may desire the joy which makes 
it to be remembered no more ? When the ful- 
ness of time is come, the fulness of strength will 
be given to meet it, and not before ; and, mean- 
while, the way of life continues to have its ache, 
a sadness peculiar to itself. . . . 

A certain degree of impatience seems natural, 
even befitting to man, a being of keen though 
limited vision, of strong though narrow grasp. 
His mind, as one who sounded its* very depths 
has taught us, is naturally enamored of order and 
system ; he finds within himself the surmise of a 



IMMORTALITY. 319 

perfection which outward nature does not respond 
to, and for this he the more delights to trace a 
sequence through all her apparent confusion ; to 
discover that by earth, and air, and ocean, there 
is a path such as the vulture's eye hath not 
known. And if science, as has been truly said, 
mourns to find a gap every here and there in her 
great chain of cause and consequence, — how is 
it with the Christian, if in the ladder which joins 
earth to Heaven there should be some rounds 
wanting? How is it when man, who loves to 
track the end from the beginning, to see the 
flower wrapt up in the bud, finds that the life of 
the soul, like that of the insect, must pass through 
strange metamorphoses, through sundry success- 
ive kinds of death? — when he discovers that the 
life of the Divine seed, set so deep in the heart 
and in the world, instead of being one of con- 
sistent growth, of harmonious development, may 
be most fitly illustrated by the well-known simile 
of an acorn set in a jar of porcelain ; a mighty 
plant that must shatter its frail earthly tabernacle 
while growing? . . . 

And here we are reminded of what the 
prophet tells us, that God's thoughts are not our 
thoughts, neither His ways our ways. God has 
time for everything, and He has room for every- 
thing; but it is far otherwise with His creature, 
and the tendency of all human effort is to go 
straight to the desired aim, putting on all possi- 
ble strain and pressure. Thus, adding what we 



320 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

conceive of Infinite power to what we know of finite 
will, vve have arrived at an idea of Omnipotence, 
the exact opposite, surely, of that to which all 
we see of the Almighty's works would lead. We 
accustom ourselves to speak of His dealings, 
whether in grace or nature, as being sudden, 
irresistible, one in design and execution; yet 
Nature, as soon as ever we pierce below her 
broad surface -smile, betrays on every hand the 
marks of care, of patience, and adaptation. All 
that we learn of God in this region tends more 
and more to bring His works out of the domain 
of the magical, to convince us that it is the 
human, and not the Divine energy, which craves 
for its purposes the signet-stamp of full and 
speedy accomplishment: 

"For we are hasty builders, incomplete; 

Our Master follows after, far more slow 
And far more sure than we, for frost, and heat, 

And winds that breathe, and waters in their flow, 
Work with Him silently." 

— Miss Greenwell 

What man can think of himself as called out 
and separated from nothing, of his being made a 
conscious, a reasonable, and a happy creature, — 
in short, of being taken in as a sharer of exist- 
ence, and a kind of partner in eternity, without 
being swallowed up in wonder, in praise, in 
adoration ! It is indeed a thought too big for 
the mind of man, and rather to be entertained 
in the secrecy of devotion, and in the silence 
of the soul, than to be expressed by words. 



IMMORTALITY. 321 

The Supreme Being has not given us powers 
or faculties sufficient to extol and magnify such 
unutterable goodness. 

It is, however, some comfort to us that we 
shall be always doing what we shall never be 
able to do ; and that a work which cannot be 
finished will, however, be the work of eternity. — 
Addison. 

There is nothing strictly immortal but immor- 
tality. Whatever hath no beginning may be con- 
fident of no end, which is the peculiar quality 
of that necessary essence that cannot destroy it- 
self, and the highest strain of omnipotency to be 
so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even 
from the power of itself: all others have a de- 
pendent being, and within the reach of destruc- 
tion. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality 
frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of 
either state after death makes a folly of posthu- 
mous memory. God, who can only destroy our 
souls, and hath assumed our resurrection, either 
of our bodies or names hath directly promised no 
duration ; wherein there is so much of chance 
that the boldest expectants have found unhappy 
frustration, and to hold long subsistence seems 
but a scape in oblivion. But man is a noble 
animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the 
grave, solemnizing nativities and death with equal 
lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the 
infamy of his nature. — Sir Thomas Browne. 

When I consider the wonderful activity of the 



322 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

mind, so great a memory of what is past, and 
such a capacity of penetrating into the future ; 
when I behold such a number of arts and 
sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries 
thence arising ; I believe and am firmly per- 
suaded that a nature which contains so many 
things within itself cannot be mortal. . . . 
But if I err in believing that the souls of men 
are immortal, I willingly err ; nor while I live 
would I wish to have this delightful error extorted 
from me ; and if after death I shall feel nothing, 
as some minute philosophers think, I am not 
afraid lest dead philosophers should laugh at me 
for the error. — Cicero. 

The caterpillar, on being converted into an 
inert scaly mass, does not appear to be fitting 
itself for an inhabitant of the air, and can have 
no consciousness of the brilliancy of its future 
being. We are masters of the earth, but perhaps 
we are the slaves of some great and unknown 
being. The fry that we crush with our finger or 
feed with our viands has no knowledge of man, 
and no consciousness of his superiority. We 
suppose that we are acquainted with matter and 
all its elements; yet we cannot even guess at the 
cause of electricity, or explain the laws of the 
formation of the stones that fall from meteors. 
There may be beings, thinking beings, near or 
surrounding us, which we do not perceive, which 
we cannot imagine. We know very little ; but, 
in mv opinion, we know enough to hope for the 



IMMORTALITY. 323 

immortality, the individual immortality, of the bet- 
ter part of man. . . . 

Even in a moral point of view, I think the 
analogies derived from the transformation of in- 
sects admit of some beautiful applications, which 
have not been neglected by our entomologists. 
The three states — of the caterpillar, larva, and 
butterfly — have, since the time of the Greek 
poets, been applied to typify the human being, — 
its terrestrial form, apparent death and ultimate 
celestial destination ; and it seems more extraor- 
dinary that a sordid and crawling worm should 
become a beautiful and active fly — that an inhab- 
itant of the dark foetid dunghill should in an in- 
stant entirely change its form, rise into the blue 
air, and enjoy the sunbeams — than that a being 
whose pursuits have been after an undying name, 
and whose purest happiness has been derived 
from the acquisition of intellectual power and 
knowledge, should rise hereafter into a state of 
being where immortality is no longer a name, 
and ascend to the source of Unbounded Power 
and Infinite Wisdom. — Sir Humphry Davy. 

Upon this short question, " Is man immortal, 
oris he not?" depends all that is valuable in 
science, in morals, and in theology, — and all that 
is most interesting to man as a social being and 
as a rational and accountable intelligence. If he 
is destined to an eternal existence, an immense 
importance must attach to all his present affec- 
tions, actions, and pursuits ; and it must be a 



324 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

matter of infinite moment that they be directed 
in such a channel as will tend to carry him for- 
ward in safety to the felicities of a future world. 
But if his whole existence be circumscribed with- 
in the circle of a few fleeting years, man appears 
an enigma, an inexplicable phenomenon in the 
universe, human life a mystery, the world a scene 
of confusion, virtue a mere phantom, the Creator 
a capricious being, and His plans and arrange- 
ments an inextricable maze. — Thomas Dick. 

When I reflect that God has given to inferior 
animals no instincts nor faculties that are not im- 
mediately subservient to the ends and purposes 
of their beings, I cannot but conclude that the 
reason and faculties of man were bestowed upon 
the same principles, and are connected with his 
superior nature. When I find him, therefore, en- 
dowed with powers to carry, as it were, the line 
and rule to the most distant worlds, I consider it 
as conclusive evidence of a future and more 
exalted destination, because I cannot believe that 
the Creator of the universe would depart from 
all the analogies of the lower creation in the 
formation of His highest creature, by gifting him 
with a capacity not only utterly useless, but de- 
structive of his contentment and happiness, if his 
existence were to terminate in the grave. — Lord 
Chancellor Erskine. 

And can we then think that the most natural 
and most necessary desire of all has nothing to 
answer it ? that nature should teach us, above 



IMMORTALITY. 325 

all things, to desire immortality, which is not to 
be had, especially when it is the most noble and 
generous desire of human nature, that which 
most of all becomes a reasonable creature to 
desire, nay, that which is the governing princi- 
ple of all our actions, and must give laws to 
all our other passions, desires, and appetites. 
What a strange creature has God made man, 
if he deceives him in the most fundamental and 
most universal principle of action ; which makes 
the whole life nothing else but one continued 
cheat and imposture ? — William Sherlock. 

If the soul be immortal, it requires to be 
cultivated with attention, not only for what we 
call the time of life, but for that which is to 
follow, — I mean eternity ; and the least neglect 
in this point may be attended with endless con- 
sequences. If death were the final dissolution 
of being, the wicked would be great gainers by 
it, by being delivered at once from their bodies, 
their souls, and their vices ; but, as the soul 
is immortal, it has no other means of being freed 
from its evils, nor any safety for it, but in be- 
coming very good and very wise ; for it carries 
nothing with it but its bad or good deeds, its 
virtues and vices, which are commonly the conse- 
quences of the education it has received, and the 
causes of eternal happiness or misery. — Socrates. 

The annunciation of life and immortality by 
the gospel, did it contain no other truth, were 
sufficient to cast all the discoveries of science into 



326 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

shade, and to reduce the highest improvements 
of reason to the comparative nothingness which 
the flight of a moment bears to eternity. By 
this discovery the prospects of human nature are 
infinitely widened, the creature of yesterday be- 
comes the child of eternity ; and as felicity is not 
the less valuable in the eye of reason because it 
is remote, nor the misery which is certain less to 
be depreciated because it is not immediately felt, 
the care of our future interests becomes our 
chief, and, properly speaking, our only, concern. 
All besides will shortly become nothing ; and 
therefore, whenever it comes into competition 
with these, it is as the small dust of the balance. 
Robert Hall. 



3P«j«mafih| Ifamir* 



That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. — i Cor. xv. 36. 

"^THROUGH sin and toil and tribulation 
*** This earthly house must needs decay ; 
But surely comes the renovation, 
The building to endure for aye. 

The Christly germ can never perish 
And moulder into nothingness ; 



'PERSONALITY FOREVER. 327 

The hope of glory that we cherish 
Is born of Everlastingness. 

There is no sleep that knows no waking : 
Death will at last give up its dead, 

And all, their proper manhood taking, 
With glorious forms be garmented. 

O weary heart, if thou dost never 
Find out perfection here below, 

Take courage from the life forever 
In which to love and serve and know. 

Endures throughout all generations, 

Whoever is of God the friend; 
What if undreamed-of revelations 

Shall flood the Year that has no end? 

The Faithful One, with grief acquainted, 
So manfully He toiled on earth, 

No mortal yet His Life has painted, 
And told us all in Him had birth. 

The fountains of that Life are flowing, 
With Love and Truth forevermore, 

New Excellence forever showing, 
Which all will see and all adore. 

The marvel of His Life foretelling, 
He burst like sunrise from the dead ! 

Behold Him ! God in man still dwelling, 
And be forever comforted. 



328 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

The expectation that this new nature will be 
fully developed in the future life is in harmony 
with what we have learned of the laws of vital 
development. St. Paul's illustration of the res- 
urrection from the germination of the seed, which 
has so vividly affected the imagination of man, 
is more appropriate than he was aware of. Or- 
ganization is not the cause but the effect of life. 
Life, in producing organization, works from with- 
in outwards, and from the invisible to the vis- 
ible. The vital germ is not a miniature of the 
mature organism, but only a minute, unorganized 
mass, having, however, a power which no physics 
or chemistry can ever explain, of organizing itself 
and thus developing into the mature organism. 
So it will be in the future life, if the Church 
is right in believing, that St. Paul spoke as the 
Spirit of God gave him knowledge. As the 
germ of the mortal life which we inherit from 
the earthly ancestors whose image we bear, has 
developed into our present bodily organism, so 
shall the germ of life spiritual, eternal and Di- 
vine, which Christ implants here in those who do 
not reject His grace, be developed under the 
kindlier influences of the future state, into the 
perfect " spiritual body " (to use a most inade- 
quate expression for what human language has 
no adequate one) which is to be created in the 
image of the Heavenly. — Murphy. 

The soul of man can never divest itself 
wholly of anxiety about its fate hereafter: there 



PERSONALITY FOREVER. 329 

are hours when, even to the prosperous, in the 
midst of their pleasures, eternity is an awful 
thought ; but how much more when those pleas- 
ures, one after another, begin to withdraw ; when 
life alters its forms, and becomes dark and cheer- 
less — when its changes warn the most inconsid- 
erate that what is so mutable .will soon pass en- 
tirely away. Then with pungent earnestness 
comes home that question to the heart, " Into 
what world are we next to go ? " How miserable 
the man who, under the distractions of calamity, 
hangs doubtful about an event which so nearly 
concerns him ; who, in the midst of doubts and 
anxieties, approaching to that awful boundary 
which separates this world from the next, shud- 
der at the dark prospect before him, wishing to 
exist after death, and yet afraid of that existence; 
catching at every feeble hope which superstition 
can afford him, and trembling in the same mo- 
ment from reflection upon his crimes. — Blair. 

There is, I know not how, in the midst of 
men, a certain presage, as it were, of a future 
existence, and this takes the deepest root and is 
most discoverable in the greatest geniuses and 
most exalted souls. — Cicero. 

To treat a subject so interesting and moment- 
ous with levity or indifference — to exert all the 
energies of the soul in the pursuit of objects 
which a few years at most will snatch forever 
from their embrace, — and never to spend one 
serious hour in reflecting on what may possibly 



330 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

succeed the present scene of existence, or in en- 
deavoring to find some light to clear up the 
doubts that may hang over this important inquiry, 
and to treat with derision and scorn those who 
would direct them in this serious investigation — 
is not only foolish and preposterous, but the 
height of infatuation and of madness. It is con- 
trary to every principle on which reasonable men 
act in relation to the affairs of the present world. 
— Thomas Dick. 

Interesting as has been the past history of 
our race, engrossing as must ever be the present 
the future, more exciting still, mingles itself with 
every thought and sentiment, and casts its beams 
of hope, or its shadows of fear, over the stage 
both of active and contemplative life. In youth 
we scarcely descry it in the distance. To the 
stripling and the man it appears and disappears 
like a variable star, showing in painful succession 
its spots of light and of shade. In age it looms 
gigantic to the eye, full of chastened hope and 
glorious anticipation ; and at the great transition, 
when the outward eye is dim, the image of the 
future is the last picture which is effaced from 
the retina of the mind. — Sir David Brewster. 

The cast of mind which is natural to a dis- 
creet man makes him look forward into futurity, 
and consider what will be his condition millions 
of ages hence, as well as what it is at present. 
He knows that the misery or happiness which 
are reserved for him in another world lose 



PERSONALITY FOREVER. 331 

nothing of their reality by being at so great dis- 
tance from him. The objects do not appear lit- 
tle to him because they are remote. He con- 
siders that those pleasures and pains which lie 
hid in eternity approach nearer to him every 
moment, and will be present with him in their 
full weight and measure, as much as those pains 
and pleasures which he feels at this very in- 
stant. For this reason he is careful to secure 
to himself that which is the proper happiness 
of his nature and the ultimate design of his 
being. He carries his thoughts to the end of 
every action, and considers the most distant as 
well as the most immediate effects of it. He 
supercedes every little prospect of gain and 
advantage which offers itself here, if he does 
not find it consistent with his views of an here- 
after. In a word, his hopes are full of immor- 
tality, his schemes are large and glorious, and 
his conduct suitable to one who knows his true 
interest and how to pursue it by proper meth- 
ods. — Addison. 

There is one question, which combines with 
the interest of speculation and curiosity an in- 
terest incomparably greater, nearer, more affect- 
ing, more solemn. It is the simple question, — 
" What Shall We Be ? " How soon it is 
spoken ! but who shall reply ? Think how pro- 
foundly this question, this mystery, concerns us, — 
and in comparison with this, what are to us all 
questions of all sciences ? What to ' us all re- 



332 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

searches into the constitution and laws of ma- 
terial nature ? What all investigations into the 
history of past ages ? What to us the future 
career of events in the progress of states and 
empires ? What to us what shall become of this 
globe itself, or all the mundane system ? What 
we shall be, we ourselves, is the matter of sur- 
passing interest. — John Foster. 

To take away rewards and punishments is 
only pleasing to a man who resolves not to live 
morally. — Dryden. 

We are led to the belief of a future state, 
not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and 
fears of human nature, but by the noblest and 
best principles which belong to it, by the love of 
virtue, and by the abhorrence of vice and in- 
justice. — Adam Smith. 

We carry the image of God in us, — a rational 
and immortal soul, and though we be now miser- 
able and feeble, yet we aspire after eternal hap- 
piness, and finally expect a great exaltation of 
all our natural powers. — Bentley. 




"By and by, another sleep, 
Angels watch and ward to keep. 
By and by, from wakeful eyes, 
Nothing of the old surprise; 
All pure dreams of earth fulfilled, 
Every sense with gladness thrilled." 



SATISFIED. 333 



laKsElh* 



I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. 

— Psalm xvii. 15. 

5<S?LEEPING, waking, on we glide, 
"*® Dreamful and unsatisfied, 

In the heart a vague surprise 
Master of the thoughtful eyes. 

What though spring is in the air, 
And the world is bright and fair ? 

Something hidden from the sight 
Dashes fulness of delight. 

Soothed are we in duty done 
And in something new begun, 

Like a kissed and flattered child 
To denial reconciled ; 

Yet the something unattained 
Keeps us like Prometheus chained. 

Sleeping, waking, on we glide, 
Dreamful and unsatisfied. 

By and by another sleep, 
Angels watch and ward to keep. 



334 WEALS OF LIFE. 

By and by from wakeful eyes 
Nothing of the old surprise, 

All pure dreams of earth fulfilled, 
Every sense with gladness thrilled. 

Then are we, no more denied, 
With Thy likeness satisfied. 



It is impossible there should be much hap- 
piness in this life ; but there is great hope that 
after death every person may obtain what he 
most wishes for. This doctrine is not new, but 
has been known both to Greeks and other na- 
tions. . . . 

The body is a prison, from which the soul 
must be released before it can arrive at the 
knowledge of things real and immutable. . . . 

The soul of each of us is an immortal Spirit, 
and goes to other immortals to give an account 
of its actions. . . . 

Can the soul be destroyed ? No. But if in 
this present life it has shunned being governed 
by the body, and has governed itself within it- 
self, and has separated from the body in a pure 
state, taking nothing sensual away with it, does 
it not then depart to that which resembles it- 
self, — to the invisible, the divine, the wise, the 
immortal ? And on its arrival there, is it not 
freed from errors, ignorance, fears, wild passions, 
and all other human evils ? Does it not in 



SATISFIED. 335 

truth pass the rest of its existence with the 
gods ? . . . 

Those who have lived a holy life, when they 
are freed from this earth, and set at large, as it 
were from a prison, will arrive at a pure abode 
above . . . habitations more beautiful than 
it is easy to describe. — Plato. 

The God of the Dead waits enthroned in im- 
mortal light to welcome the good into His King- 
dom of Joy ; to the homes He had gone to pre- 
pare for them, where the One Being dwells be- 
yond the Stars. — From the Hindu. 

Is it a misfortune to pass from infancy to 
youth? Still less can it be a misfortune to go 
from this miserable life to that true life into 
which we are introduced by death. Our first 
changes are connected with the progressive de- 
velopment of life. The new change which death 
effects is only the passage to a more desirable 
perfection. To complain of the necessity of dy- 
ing is to accuse Nature of not having con- 
demned us to perpetual infancy. — Gregory of 
Nyssa. • 

Of what import this vacant sky, these puff- 
ing elements, these insignificant lives, full of 
selfish loves, and quarrels, an ennui? Every- 
thing is prospective, and man is to live here- 
after. That the world is for his education is 
the only sane solution of the enigma. All the 
comfort I have found teaches me to confide 
that I shall not have less in times and places 



336 WEALS OF LIFE. 

that I do not yet know. I have known admir- 
able persons, without feeling that they exhaust 
the possibilities of virtue and talent. I have 
seen glories of climate, of summer mornings and 
evenings, of midnight sky; I have enjoyed the 
benefits of all this complex machinery of arts 
and civilization, and its results of comfort. The 
Good Power can easily provide me millions 
more as good. All I have seen teaches me to 
trust the Creator for all I have not seen. What- 
ever it be which the Great Providence prepares 
for us, it must be something large and gener- 
ous, and in the great style, of His works. — 
Emerson. 

My body must descend to the place ordained, 
but my soul will not descend: being a thing im- 
mortal, it will ascend on high, where it will en- 
ter a Heavenly abode. — Heraclitus. 

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the 
moment of waking from a troubled dream : it 
may be so after death. — Hawthorne. 

Not by lamentations and mournful chants 
ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man 
but by hymns; for in ceasing to be numbered 
with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a 
divine life. — Plutarch. 

Life is a state of embryo, — a preparation for 
life. A man is not completely born until he has 
passed through death. — Dr. Franklin. 

This world is simply the threshhold of our vast 
life; the first stepping-stone from nonentity into 






SATISFIED. 337 

the boundless expanse of possibility. It is the 
infant-school of the soul. The physical universe 
spread out before us, and the spiritual trials and 
mysteries of our discipline are simply our primer, 
our grammar, our spelling-dictionary, to teach us 
something of the language we are to use in our 
maturity. — Starr King. 

When we die we shall find we have not lost 
our dreams : we have only lost our sleep. — 
Richter. 

We go to the grave of a friend, saying, A 
man is dead ; but angels throng about him. say- 
ing, A man is born. — H. W. Beecher. 

God is our Father. Heaven is His high 
throne, and this earth is His footstool. While 
we sit around, and meditate, or pray, one by 
one, as we fall asleep, He lifts us into His 
bosom, and our waking is inside the gates of an 
everlasting world. — Mountford. 



God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. — I John i. 5. 

£^J?HE riddle of the Sphinx, 
^ The ghost that will not down 



338 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Unto the man who' only thinks, 
The cross that has no crown. 

The riddle of the Sphinx, 

The mystery of life, 
To him who loves, as well as thinks, 

Rest after weary strife. 

The riddle of the Sphinx 

In Sacrifice and Love, 
Like a falling star, forever sinks, 

All beautiful above. 

O riddle of the Sphinx, 

Thou hast no place in Christ: 

Who at the Living Fountain drinks 
That water hath sufficed. 



How true is that old fable of the sphinx who 
sat by the wayside, propounding her riddle to the 
passengers, which, if they could not answer, she 
destroyed them ! Such a sphinx, is this life of 
ours to all men and societies of men. Nature, 
like the sphinx, is of womanly celestial loveliness 
and tenderness ; the face and bosom of a goddess, 
but ending in claws and the body of a lioness. 
There is in her a celestial beauty, which means 
celestial order, pliancy to wisdom ; but there is 
also a darkness, a ferocity, a fatality, which is in- 
fernal. She is a goddess, but one not yet disim- 
prisoned ; one still half imprisoned, — the inarticu- 
late, lovely, still incased in the inarticulate, cha- 



THE RIDDLE OF SPHINX. 339 

otic. How true ! And does she not propound 
her riddles to us ? Of each man she asks daily, 
in a mild voice, yet with a terrible significance, 
" Knowest thou the meaning of this day ? What 
thou can^t do to-day, wisely attempt to do." Nature, 
universe, destiny, existence, howsoever we name 
this great unnamable fact in the midst of which 
we live and struggle, is as a heavenly bride and 
conquest to the wise and brave, to them who can 
discern her behests and do them ; a destroying 
fiend to them who cannot. Answer her riddle, 
it is well with thee. Answer it not, pass on re- 
garding it not, it will answer itself: the solution 
of it is a thing of teeth and claws. Nature is a 
dumb lioness, deaf to thy pleadings, fiercely de- 
vouring. — Carlyle. 

Man has striven to bridge over the chasm 
between his soul and God with theories contra- 
dictory to the reason they profess to satisfy, and 
false to the moral reason they desire to soothe; 
but He who spake as never man spake does not 
reason upon this subject ; He sees this great 
gulf set ; He knows what its mouth has devoured 
of earth's best nnd noblest: one thing most 
precious of all remains, — He flings Himself into 
it. Human life is beset with contradic- 

tions, at the solution of which we are but guess- 
ers, until Christ solves the riddle that was too 
hard for us, — bringing forth food and sweetness 
from the very jaws of the devouring lion. "If 
thou wouldst have me weep," said one of old, 



340 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

"thou must first weep thyself." God has wept. 
in the strong crying and the tears of the Son, in 
the great drops of sweat, as it were blood falling 
down to the ground, lies the witness to the tra- 
vail of the Father's Soul. " Herein is love," con- 
soling, rebuking love, — love that has no consola- 
tion so strong as the rebuke it administers. 
" Behold my hands and my feet ! " These testi- 
fy to a necessity endured, an anguish shared. It 
is our brother's blood that cries to us from the 
ground: "A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as 
ye see me have ! " — Miss Greenwell. 

Life is full of inscrutable facts which cannot 
be made by us to fit into any moral standard of 
ours. All that the moral judgment has a right 
to say with regard to them is to refuse to be- 
lieve any proposed interpretation of them which 
makes God unrighteous on account of such facts, 
and to wait patiently in full faith that a time will 
come when we shall see these now inexplicable 
facts to have been fully consistent with the most 
perfect righteousness. And the same use which 
we make of our moral judgment in regard to 
the facts which meet us in life, we are bound to 
make of it with regard to the doctrines of reve- 
lation. We may not be able now to see moral 
light through all of these, but we are to refuse 
any interpretation of them which does violence to 
the moral judgment. In both cases, however, we 
have reason to expect that, to those who hon- 
estly and humbly use the light they have, more 



THE RIDDLE OF SPHINX. 34] 

light will be given, — a growing insight into, or at 
least a trustful acquiescence in, facts which at 
first were too dark and perplexing. There are 
in this region two extremes, equally to be 
shunned. One is theirs who in matters of re- 
ligion begin by discrediting the natural light, — 
by putting out the eye of conscience, — that they 
may the more magnify the Heavenly light of 
revelation, or rather their own interpretations 
thereof. The other is seen in those who, en- 
throning on the judgment-seat the first off-hand 
findings of their own, and that perhaps no very 
enlightened conscience, proceed to arraign before 
this bar the statements of Scripture, and to re- 
ject all which does not seem to square with the 
verdicts of the self-erected tribunal. There is a 
more excellent way than either, a way not de- 
finable perhaps by criticism, but to be found by 
spiritual wisdom. There are those who, loath to 
do violence to the teachings either of Scripture 
or of conscience, but patiently and reverently 
comparing them together, find that the more 
deeply they are pondered, the more they do, on 
the whole, reflect light one on the other. To 
such the words of Scripture, interpreted by the 
experience of life, reveal things about their own 
nature which once seemed incredible. And the 
more they know of themselves and their own 
needs, the more the words of Scripture seem to 
enlarge their meaning to meet these. But as to 
the large outlying region of the inexplicable that 



342 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

will still remain in the world, in man, and in 
Holy writ, they can leave all this, in full confi- 
dence that when the solution, soon or late, shall 
come, it will be seen to be in profound harmony 
with our highest sense of righteousness, and 
with that word which declares that " God is 
light, and in Him is no darkness at all." Such, 
though not expressed in Coleridge's words, I 
believe to be the spirit of his teaching. — J. C. 
Shairp. 



I^fREAT Searcher of the troubled heart, 
®^ I bow before Thy Throne, 
And pray Thee make my doubts depart 
Till I am all Thine own. 

Shine through the sky of my dark soul, 

Bring from the night the day, 
Until the clouds and darkness roll 

Forevermore away. 

O Thou, in whom I trust, believe, 

Who am of sinners chief, 
My heart's strong, wrestling prayer receive, 

And help my unbelief. 



Ub BELIEF. 343 

The blindness which, for Thomas' sake, 

Thou didst of old remove, 
Do Thou from me in mercy take, 

And melt my heart with love. 



There is but one thing without honor ; smitten 
with eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be, 
— insincerity, unbelief. He who believes no thing, 
who believes only the shows of things, is not in 
relation with nature and fact at all. — Carlyle. 

Infidelity gives nothing in return for what it 
takes away. What, then, is it worth? Every- 
thing to be valued has a compensating power. 
Not a blade of grass that withers, or the ugliest 
weed that is flung away to rot and die, but re- 
produces something. Nothing in nature is bar- 
ren. Therefore, everything that is or seems op- 
posed to nature cannot be true ; it can only exist 
in the shape that a diseased mind imparts to one 
of its coinage, — a mass of base money that won't 
pass current with any heart that loves truly, or 
any head that thinks correctly. 

And infidels are poor, sad creatures ; they 
carry about them a load of dejection and desola- 
tion, not the less heavy that it is invisible. It is 
the fearful blindness of the soul. — Dr. Chalmers. 

No living man is at heart an atheist. It is an 
incompatible condition. It would require a vacu- 
um in the soul, an utter impossibility. If the 
desire is not filled with God, it must take up an 
" ism ; " something to pet, love, admire, and study. 



344 /DEALS 01- LIFE. 

"To the unknown God" would apply to many in 
the nineteenth century, if they would only open 
their eyes. 

How any scientific man can be an infidel is a 
perfect wonder to me. For the more one studies 
out the marvels of creation, the more he is per- 
mitted to peep into the penetralia and behold the 
arcana, the hidden treasures of God's works, the 
more he looks at and never, never finds an error 
in the plan of the universe, the more he beholds 
the unceasing labors of the world — while half 
sleep in darkness, the other half are toiling — a 
heaven, some shrine beyond the reach of the tan- 
gibility of science and analysis, is needed for the 
soul to take the wings of the morning and fly to. 
There is no limit to unselfish love. — S. W. Francis. 

I would rather dwell in the dim fog of super- 
stition than in air rarefied to nothing by the air- 
pump of unbelief; in which the panting breast 
expires, vainly and convulsively gasping for 
breath. — Richter. 

Unbelievers have not always been honest 
enough thus to express their real feelings ; but 
this we know concerning them, that when they 
have renounced their birthright of hope, they have 
not been able to divest themselves of fear. 
From the nature of the human mind this might 
be presumed, and in fact it is so. They may 
deaden the heart and stupefy the conscience, but 
they cannot destroy the imaginative faculty. — 
Southey. 



UNDER THE STABS. 345 



l(itbr lip jStar$* 



Solitude is the audience-chamber of God. — Landor. 

^ANISHED are all the wild ghosts of the air, 
^ Echo sends back not a wail of despair, 
Even the forests their moaning forbear. 

Peacefully slumbers the sorrowful world, 
Like a tired angel whose pinions are furled, 
All in the shadowy glory impearled. 

Out of the deep of ethereal eyes 
Wherein a fathomless mystery lies, 
Beautiful Silence descendeth the skies. 

Whispers she into the heart of the Earth 
Dreams of which mortals perceive not the worth, 
Calmly announcing Eternity's birth ; 

While in the bath of her silvery sea 
Christ in the heart of the faithful is free, 
Telling of infinite glory to be. 

Silence ! now time and Eternity meet. 
Silence ! my soul doth the Deity greet. 
Silence ! I marvel not death is so sweet ! — 

Sweet to be called from the valley we plod, 
Sweet to be freed from the darkness and clod, 
Sweet to be hidden forever in God ! 



346 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

To go into solitude a man needs to retire as 
much from his chamber as from society. I am 
not solitary whilst 1 read and write, though no- 
body is with me. But if a man would be alone, 
let him look at the stars. The rays that come 
from those heavenly worlds will separate be- 
tween him and what he touches. One might 
think the atmosphere was made transparent with 
this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, 
the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in 
the streets of cities, how great they are ! If the 
stars should appear one night in a thousand 
years, how would men believe and adore ; and 
preserve for many years the remembrance of the 
city of God which had been shown ! But every 
night come out these envoys of beauty, and light 
the universe with their admonishing smile. — 
Emerson. 

The starry heaven, though it occurs so very 
frequently to our view, never fails to excite an 
idea of grandeur. This cannot be owing to the 
stars themselves, separately considered. The 
number is certainly the cause. The apparent dis- 
order augments the grandeur, for the appearance 
of care is highly contrary to our idea of magnifi- 
cence. Besides, the stars lie in such apparent 
confusion as makes it impossible on ordinary oc- 
casions to reckon them. This gives them the 
advantage of a sort of infinity. — Burke. 

Look up, and behold the eternal fields of 
light that lie round about the throne of God. 



UNDER THE STARS. 347 

Had no star ever appeared in the heavens, to 
man there would have been no heavens, and he 
would have laid himself down to his last sleep in 
a spirit of anguish, as upon a gloomy earth 
vaulted over by a material arch, — solid and im- 
pervious. — Carlyle. 

It is a gentle and affectionate thought, that in 
immeasurable height above us, at our first birth, 
the wreath of love was woven with sparkling stars 
for flowers. — Coleridge. 

She raised her eyes to the bright stars, look- 
ing down so mildly from the wide worlds of air ; 
and, gazing on them, found new stars burst upon 
her view ; and more beyond, and more beyond 
again, until the whole great expanse sparkled 
with shining spheres, rising higher and higher in 
immeasurable space, eternal in their numbers as 
in their changeless and incorruptible existence. 
She bent over the calm river, and saw them 
shining in the same majestic order as when the 
dove beheld them gleaming through the swollen 
waters, upon the mountain-tops down far below, 
the dead mankind a million fathoms deep. — 
Dickens. 

When I gazed into these stars, have they not 
looked down on me as if with pity from their 
serene spaces, like eyes glistening with heavenly 
tears over the little lot of man ! — Carlyle. 



248 IDEALS OF LItE. 



\t l|jfottKfr& 






MYTH, that grew within the brain, 
Relates that Eden's bowers 
Did not, 'mid all their gifts, contain 
The glory of the flowers; 



Because- there were no opened eyes 

To take that glory in, 
The sweet and innocent surprise 

Which looks rebuke to sin ; 

For Love, and Innocence, and Truth, 
There made their dwelling-place, 

Than which fair three immortal Youth 
Required no other grace. 

But when, through sin, the happy seat 

Was lost to wretched man, 
Our Lord, redeeming love to meet, 

Revealed His perfect plan : 

The blessed flowers, unseen till now, 

Shall deck the weary earth, 
And, while men 'neath their burdens bow, 

Remind them of their birth ; 

And, with their vernal beauty rife, 

To all the Gospel preach, 
The Resurrection and the Life, 

In sweet persuasive speech. 



o 



o t-; 




THE FLOWERS. 349 

How the universal heart of man blesses 
flowers ! They are wreathed round the cradle, 
the marriage altar and the tomb. The Persian in 
the far East delights in their perfume, and writes 
his love in nosegays; while the Indian child of 
the far West claps his hands with glee as he 
gathers the abundant blossoms, — the illuminated 
Scriptures of the prairies. The Cupid of the an- 
cient Hindoos tipped his arrows with flowers, and 
orange-flowers are a bridal crown with us, — a 
nation of yesterday. Flowers garlanded the Gre- 
cian altar, and hung in votive wreath before the 
Christian shrine. All these are appropriate uses. 
Flowers should deck the brow of the youthful 
bride, for they are in themselves a lovely type of 
marriage. They should twine round the tomb, 
for their perpetually renewed beauty is a symbol 
of the resurrection. They should festoon the 
altar, for their fragrance and their beauty ascend 
in perpetual worship before the Most High. — 
Mrs. L. M. Child. 

Whence is this delicate scent in the rose and 
violet? It is not from the root, — that smells of 
nothing; not from the stalk, — that is as scentless 
as the root; not from the earth whence it grows, 
which contributes no more to these flowers than 
to the grass that grows by them ; not from the 
leaf, not from the bud, before it be disclosed, 
which yields no more fragrance than the leaf, or 
stalk, or root ; yet here I now find it : neither is 
there any miraculous way but in the ordinary 



350 WEALS OF LIFE. 

course of nature, for all violets and roses of this 
kind yield the same redolence: it cannot be but 
that it was potentially in that root and stem from 
which the flowers proceed ; and there placed and 
thence drawn by the Almighty Power which hath 
given those admirable virtues to several plants, 
and induces them, in His due season, to those 
excellent perfections. — Bishop Hall. 

How beautiful and yet how cheap are flow- 
ers ! Not exotics, but what are called common 
flowers. A rose, for instance, is among the most 
beautiful of the smiles of nature. The " laughing 
flowers," exclaims the poet. But there is more 
than gayety in blooming flowers, though it takes 
a wise man to see the beauty, the love, and the 
adaptation of which they are so full. 

What would we think of one who had in- 
Vented flowers, supposing that, before him, flowers 
were unknown ? Would he not be regarded as 
the opener-up of a paradise of new delight ? 
Should we not hail the inventor as a genius, as 
a god ? And yet these lovely offsprings of the 
earth have been speaking to man from the first 
dawn of his existence until now, telling him of 
the goodness and wisdom of the Creative Power, 
which bid the earth bring forth not only that 
which was useful as food, but also flowers, the 
bright consummate flowers, to clothe it in beauty 
and joy ! 

Bring one of the commonest field flowers into 
a room, place it on a table, or chimney-piece, 



THE FLOWERS. 351 

and you seem to have brought a ray of sun- 
shine into the place. There is a cheerfulness 
about flowers. What a delight are they to the 
drooping invalid ! They are a sweet enjoyment, 
coming as messengers from the country, and 
seeming to say, — " Come and see the place 
where we grow, and let your heart be glad in 
our presence." 

What can be more innocent than flowers ? 
They are like children undimmed by sin. They 
are emblems of purity and truth, a source of 
fresh delight to the pure and innocent. The 
heart that does not love flowers, or the voice of 
a playful child, cannot be genial. It was a beau- 
tiful conceit that invented a language of flowers, 
by which lovers were enabled to express the feel- 
ings that they dared not openly speak. But 
flowers have a voice for all, — old and young, rich 
and poor. "For me," says Wordsworth, 



"The meanest flower that blows, can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 



— Smiles. 



352 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



ntpz rrF 



bin. 



The wages of sin is death. — Romans vi. 

I^KRUTH out of sight, 
*** Falsehood crept in, 
Wrong put for Right — 
Wages of Sin. 

Self become god, 

Eager to win 
All at its nod — 

Wages of Sin. 

Scorn of the Seer, 

Vanity's grin, 
Darkness grown dear — 

Wages of Sin. 

Trouble without, 
Canker within, 

Fear, Hate, and Doubt- 
Wages of Sin. 

What is to be, 
All that has been 

Shadows that flee — 
Wages of Sin. 

Loss of the soul, 
Wrangle and din, 

Tragedy's dole — 
Wages of Sin. 



WAGES OF SIN. 353 

Sin is not the possession of desires, but the 
having them in uncontrolled ascendency over the 
higher nature. Sinfulness does not consist in 
having strong desires or passions. In the strong- 
est and highest natures, all, including the desires, 
is strong. Sin is not a real thing. It is rather 
the absence of a something, the will to do right. 
It is not a disease or taint, an actual substance 
projected into the constitution. It is the absence 
of the spirit which orders and harmonizes the 
whole ; so that what we mean when we say the 
natural man must sin inevitably is this, — that he 
has strong natural appetites, and that he has no 
bias from above to counteract those appetites : 
exactly as if a ship were deserted by her crew, 
and left on the bosom of the Atlantic with every 
sail set and the wind blowing. No one forces 
her to destruction ; yet on the rocks she will 
surely go, just because there is no pilot at her 
helm. Such is the state of ordinary men. Temp- 
tation leads to fall. The gusts of instinct, which 
rightly guided, would have carried safely into 
port, dash them on the rocks. No one forces 
them to sin ; but the spirit-pilot has left the helm. 
Fallen Nature ! 

Sin, therefore, is not in the appetites, but in 
the absence of a controlling Will. — ■ F. W. Rob- 
ertson. 

Perhaps few narratives in History or Myth- 
ology are more significant than that Moslem one, 
of Moses and the Dwellers by the Dead Sea. A 



354 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

tribe of men dwelt on the shores of that same 
Asphaltic Lake ; and having- forgotten, as we are 
all too prone to do, the inner facts of Nature, 
and taken up with the falsities and outer sem- 
blances of it, were fallen into sad conditions, — 
verging, indeed, toward a far deeper lake. 
Whereupon it pleased kind Heaven to send them 
the Prophet Moses, with an instructive word of 
warning, out of which might have sprung 'reme- 
dial measures ' not a few. But, no : the men 
of the Dead Sea discovered, as the valet-species 
always does in heroes or prophets, no comeli- 
ness in Moses ; listened with real tedium to 
Moses, with light grinning, or with splenetic 
sniffs and sneers, affecting even to yawn ; and 
signified, in short, that they found him a hum- 
bug, and even a bore. Such was the candid 
theory these men of the Asphalt Lake formed 
to themselves of Moses, that probably he was 
a humbug, that certainly he was a bore. 

Moses withdrew ; but Nature and her rigor- 
ous veracities did not withdraw. The men of 
the Dead Sea, when we next went to visit them. 
were all " changed into Apes ; " sitting on trees 
there, grinning now in the most ^affected man- 
ner ; gibbering and chattering very genuine 
nonsense ; finding the whole Universe now a 
most indisputable Humbug ! The Universe had 
become a Humbug to these Apes who thought it 
was. There they sit and chatter, to this hour : 
only, I believe, every Sabbath there returns to 



WAGES OF SIN. 355 

them a bewildered half-consciousness, half-reminis- 
cence ; and they sit, with their wizened, smoke- 
dried visages, and such an air of supreme tran- 
quility as Apes may ; looking out through those 
blinking, smoke-bleared eyes of theirs, into the 
wonderfulest universal smoke of Twilight and un- 
decipherable disordered dusk of Things ; wholly 
an Uncertainty, Unintelligibility, they and it;' and 
for commenting thereon, here and there an un- 
musical chatter or mew : truest, tranquilist Hum- 
bug conceivable by the mind of man or ape ! 
They made no use of their souls ; and so have 
lost them. Their worship on the Sabbath now is 
to roost there, with unmusical screeches ; and 
half-remember that they have souls. 

Didst thou never, O traveller, fall in with 
portions of this tribe ? It seems they are grown 
somewhat numerous in our day. — Carlyle. 

He that falls into sin is a man ; that grieves 
at it, may be a saint ; that boasteth of it, is a 
devil. — Thomas Fuller. 

All crimes are indeed sins, but not all sins 
crimes. A sin may be in the thought or secret- 
purpose of a man, of which neither a judge, nor 
a witness, nor any man, can take notice. — 

HOBBES. 

Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for 
it will not spare you ; it is your murderer, and 
the murderer of the world ; use it, therefore, as 
a murderer should be used. Kill it before it 
kills you ; and though it kill your bodies, it 



356 WEALS OF LIFE. 

shall not be able to kill your souls; and though 
it bring you to the grave, as it did your Head, 
it shall not be able to keep you there. — Baxter. 

There is more bitterness following on sin's 
ending than ever there was sweetness flowing 
upon sin's acting. You that see nothing but well 
in its commission will suffer nothing but woe in 
its conclusion ; you that sin for your profits will 
never profit by your sins. — J. Dyer. 

Were the visage of sin seen at full light, un- 
dressed and unpainted, it were impossible, while: 
it so appeared, that any one soul could be in 
love with it, but would rather flee from it as 
hideous and abominable. — Archbishop Leighton. 

Sin and hedge-hogs are born without spikes, 
but how they wound and prick after their birth 
we all know. The most unhappy being is he 
who feels remorse before the (sinful) deed, and 
brings forth a sin already furnished with teeth in 
its birth, the bite of which is soon prolonged 
into an incurable wound of the conscience. — 
Richter. 

Sin is to the soul like fire to combustible 
matter: it assimilates before it destroys it. — 
South. 

Once upon the inclined road of error, and 
there is no swiftness so tremendous as that with 
which we dash down the plane, no insensibility 
so obstinate as that which fastens on us through 
the quick descent. The start once made, and 
there is neither stopping nor waking until the 



WAGES OF SIN. 357 

last and lowest depth is sounded. Our natural 
fears and promptings become hushed with the 
first impetus, and we are lost to everything but 
the delusive tones of sin, which only cheat the 
senses and make our misery harmonious. Fare- 
well all opportunities of escape, — the strivings of 
conscience, — the faithful whisperings of shame, 
which served us even when we stood trembling 
at the fatal point ! Farewell the holy power of 
virtue, which made foul things look hideous, and 
good things lovely, and kept a guard about our 
hearts to welcome beauty and frighten off de- 
formity ! Farewell integrity, — joy, — rest, — and 
happiness ! — Melville. 

The only disturber of men, of families, cities, 
kingdoms, worlds, is sin : there is no such trou- 
ble, no such traitor to any state, as the wilfully 
wicked man ; no such enemy to the public as 
the enemy of God. — Wogan. 

For every sort of suffering there is sleep pro- 
vided by a gracious Providence, save that of sin. 
— Prof. Wilson. 



358 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



Ifaatteit, 



Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the tilings which God hath prepared for them that love 
Him. — I Cor. xi. 9. 

MKY SOUL, my soul, is Heaven 
Q ^^ Wherever God abides, 
Up lofty stairs in number seven, 
And many more besides ? 

My soul, my soul, is Heaven 
Where God in Christ is found, 

That marvellously peaceful haven 
Where all fair things abound ? 

My soul, my soul, is Heaven 
Where Hate can never come, 

And Love, beyond all thinking even, 
In silence whispers, Home ? 

My soul, my soul, is Heaven 

Where rest is doing good, 
And to the constant heart is given 

The joy of Brotherhood ? 

Are these the walls of Heaven ? 

Are these what Truth is worth ? 
Are these the four great Thoughts which 
leaven 

Eternal life on Earth ? 



HE A VEN. 359 

My soul replies that Heaven 

Is to approach the Lord, 
And, coming with no spirit craven, 

To take Him at His word. 






To acquaint ourselves with Christ is to be- 
come acquainted with Heaven. It is to be able 
to speak of it, as was said of a Saint of old, as 
of a place where we have already been, and 
from whence we have but returned upon an 
errand. There is no other possession which has 
been made our own with as much certainty, no 
other place of which, vaguely as we allow our- 
selves to speak of it, we really know so much. 
If we, indeed, know little about Heaven, it is only 
because we know little about God, and Jesus 
Christ in whom He is revealed: for this, the true 
spiritual acquaintance with God, " is life eternal." 
Little, it is true, has been made known to us ot 
the outward constitution of our future common- 
wealth, much has been imparted to us of its in- 
ward conditions, and this through experience, — 
good things given instruct us in good things pre- 
pared. Love that " prepares " Many Mansions 
for us, prepares us for what we shall find in 
them. We are so ignorant of the Divine econ- 
omy which regulates our everlasting habitations, 
that the mere attempt to guess at what will be 
there our probable habits, pursuits and occupa- 
tions, involves us in a thousand difficulties and 
contradictions ; and yet, while we know not how 



360 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

we shall then live, we know in kind, if not in 
degree, how we shall then feel. Here, while the 
form and outline are strange to us, the imperish- 
able essence is familiar: we cannot define either 
the shape or color of this. God's glorious Rose ; 
we only know it through its fragrance, unfolding 
in the regenerate soul of man. We cannot paint 
this flower, yet love, and peace, and joy in the 
Holy Ghost con.vey within our hearts a subtle 
sense of its odor, and instruct us in the highest 
secrets of Heaven. — Miss Greenwell. 

Where the soul hath the full measure and 
complement of happiness ; where the boundless 
appetite of that spirit remains completely satis- 
fied, that it can neither desire addition nor alter- 
ation ; that, I think, is truly heaven : and this 
can only be in the enjoyment of that essence 
whose infinite goodness is able to terminate the 
desires of itself, and the unsatiable wishes of 
ours: wherever God will thus manifest Himself 
there is heaven, though within the circle of this 
visible world. Thus the soul of man may be in 
heaven anywhere, even within the limits of his 
own proper body. — Sir Thomas Browne. 

Some real lives do, — for certain days or 
years, — actually anticipate the happiness of 
heaven ; and I believe if such perfect happiness 
is once felt by good people (to the wicked it 
never comes) its sweet effect is never wholly 
lost. Whatever trials follow, whatever pains of 
sickness or shades of death, the glory preced- 






HEA VEN. 361 

ent still shines through, cheering- the keen an- 
guish and tinging the deep cloud. — Charlotte 
Bronte. 

Perfect purity, — fullness of joy, — everlasting 
freedom, — perfect rest, — health and fruition, — com- 
plete security, — substantial and eternal good. — 
Hannah Moore. 

Our souls, piercing through the impurity of 
flesh, behold the highest heavens, and thence 
bring knowledge to contemplate the everduring 
glory and termless joy. — Sir Walter Raleigh. 

All things of the Hereafter have their begin- 
ning here. The Christly germ, fed by grace and 
truth, unfolds and grows and grows amid the 
suns and storms of earth, and its blossom is a 
present Heaven, its fruit — the Heaven to come ; 
or, neglected and hidden amid the cold impurity 
of sin, it withers and withers until its blackness 
is a present hell, prophetic of the hell to follow. 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered into the heart of man the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love Him." 
Reader, thy imagination needs no help to draw 
the counterpart of this picture. . 

24 



XQ2 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



^WWHICH has beginning here, 
' sc * i>/ ' Confusion dark, invisible, 
Loveless, foreboding fear. 

Where God is less and less, 
Until the soul is left to dwell 
In utter loneliness. 

The state from God apart, 
The poisonous damp of death's deep well, 
The vileness of the heart. 

Where sinners find their own, 
The judgment only they can tell, 
Self to a viper grown. 

Which lasts as long as sin, 
The outer darkness terrible 
To all that are therein. 



After a service in a place where the peo- 
ple had been a good deal bewildered by a self- 
ordained preacher, who accepted only so much 
of the Bible as suited his whims, and who was 
wont to make merry over the idea of future 
punishment, a man stepped up to me and said, 
in a canting voice : 

" Bishop, do you believe in a hell ? " 



HELL. 363 

I said, "Are you anxious to know what I 
think of hell ? " 

" Yes," said he. 

" Well," said I, " the best answer I have ever 
heard came from a poor negro woman. She 
had a young niece, who sorely tried the poor 
soul. The more she struggled to keep this will- 
ful charge in the right way, the more she 
seemed to wander. One day, after hearing a 
new preacher, the niece came bounding into the 
room, and said : 

"Aunty, I ain't gwine to believe in a hell 
no more." If dar is any hell I jest wants to 
know whar dey gets all dere brimstone for dat 
place ; dat's what I would like to know." 

The old woman fixed her eyes on her, and 
with a tear on her cheek, said : 

"Ah, honey darlin', you look out you don't 
go dare, for you'll find dey all takes der own 
brimstone wid 'em." 

I then said, " Is there any other question in 
theology you would like to ask ? " 

" No," said he. 

And he went home, I hope with a new idea 
that sin brings sorrow, and that to be saved 
we need deliverance from sin. Some men carry 
" their own brimstone," even in this world. — 
Bishop Whipple. 

The heart of a man is the place the devil 
dwells in : I feel sometimes a hell within my- 
self: Lucifer keeps his court in my breast 



364 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Legion is revived in me. There are as many 
hells as Anaxarchus conceited worlds. There 
was more than one hell in Magdalene, when 
there were seven devils, for every devil is an 
hell unto himself; he holds enough of torture 
in his own ubi, and needs not the misery of 
circumstance to afflict him. And thus a distracted 
conscience here is a shadow or introduction into 
hell hereafter. — Sir Thomas Browne. 

The fear of hell may indeed in some desperate 
cases, like the moxa, give the first rouse from a 
moral lethargy, or, like the green venom of cop- 
per, by evacuating poison or a dead load from 
the inner man, prepare it for nobler ministrations 
and medicines from the realm of light and life, 
that nourish while they stimulate. — Coleridge. 

If shame, superadded to loss, and both met 
together, as the sinner's portion here, perfectly 
prefiguring the two saddest ingredients in hell, 
— deprivation of the blissful vision, and confu- 
sion of face, — cannot prove efficacious to the 
mortifying of vice, the church doth give over 
the patient. — Hammond. 

Many might go to Heaven with half the labor 
they go to hell, if they would venture their in- 
dustry the right way. — Ben Johnson. 



THE DIVINE LAW. 365 



J)imtt£ Jtatfc 



He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption . 
but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life ever- 
lasting. — Galatians vi. 8. 

I|[EAVEN and Hell are dated here 
^^ On parchment of the free - born will : 
Judgment at last will make it clear, 
The mighty law of good and ill. 

The Light of Love and Truth Divine, 
The glory of the Saviour's blood, 

Can make the darkest spirit shine, 
And work us everlasting good. 

The false and evil that we cherish, 
Engrafting in our souls the bane, 

Will not, when time is ended, perish, 
Never bewildering again. 

Prophets as thick as human lives, 
And with one burden evermore, 

Proclaim that character survives, 
On reaching the Eternal shore ; 

And that to everything beyond 
In that far land to which we go, 

Something of earth doth correspond, 
To hint what is for us to know. 



366 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

O sin - deluded ears and eyes, 
Not to perceive Eternity 

Is everywhere beneath the skies, 
Earth's only great reality ! 



Man's actions here are of infinite moment to 
him, and never die or end at all ; man, with 
his little life, reaches upward high as Heaven, 
downward low as Hell, and in his threescore 
years of Time holds an Eternity fearfully and 
wonderfully hidden. — Carlyle. 

Reader, even Christian Reader as thy title 
goes, hast thou any notion of Heaven and Hell ? 
I rather apprehend not! Often as the words 
are on our tongue they have got a fabulous 
or semi-fabulous character for most of us, and 
pass on like a kind of transient similitude, like 
a sound signifying little. 

Yet it is well worth while for us to know, 
once and always, that they are not a similitude, 
nor a semi-fable ; that they are an everlasting, 
highest Fact ! " No Lake of Sicilian or other 
sulphur burns now anywhere in these ages," 
sayest thou ? Well, if there did not ! Believe 
that there does not; believe it if thou wilt, nay, 
hold by it as a real increase, a rise to higher 
stages, to wider horizons and empires. All this 
has vanished or has not vanished : believe as 
thou wilt as to all this. But that an Infinite of 
Practical Importance, speaking with strict mathe- 
matical exactness, an Infinite has vanished or can 






THE DIVINE LAW. 367 

vanish from the life of any man : this thou shalt 
not believe i O brother, the Infinite of Terror, 
of Hope, of Pity, did not at any moment disclose 
itself to thee, indubitable, unnameable ? Came 
it never like the gleam of preternatural eternal 
Oceans, like the voice of old Eternities, far 
sounding through thy hearts of hearts ? Never ? 
Alas, it was not thy Liberalism, then ; it was thy 
Animalism! The Infinite is more sure than any 
other fact. But only men can discern it ; mere 
building beavers, spinning arachnes, much more 
predatory vulturous and vulpine species, do not 
discern it well ! — Carlyle. 

Of law there can be no less acknowledged 
than that her seat is the bosom of God, her 
voice the harmony of the world. All things in 
heaven and earth do her homage, — the very least 
as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempted 
from her power : both angels and men and crea- 
tures, of what condition soever, though each in 
different sort and manner, yet all with uniform 
consent, admiring her as the mother of their 
peace and joy. — Hooker. 

Law is immutable, universal, perfect. The 
harvest it brought from certain conditions yester- 
day, it brings to-day, it will bring to-morrow, 
from like conditions. " Be not deceived ! God is 
not mocked ; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap ; for he that soweth to his 
flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption : but he 
that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap 
life everlasting." . 



368 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



issignaiitm. 



|G)RAY thou, and in thy confidence adore Him, 
^ O Lord, Thy will be done ! 
The vapor of the world will flee before Him 
Like mist before the sun. 

And thou shalt have the sight of Truth Eternal, 

As beautiful as light, 
Until thy withered life again is vernal 

And hid from every blight. 

For, hid with Christ in God, how can it wither 

In darkness any more ? 
Oh, count it safe ! — until thou goest whither 

The Lord has gone before ; 

And think, as oft as thou shalt see affliction, 

An angel in disguise 
Upon thy head has dropped a benediction, 

A flower from Paradise. 



Shall I rage, fret, and accuse Providence of 
injustice ? No : let me rather lament that I do 
not what is always right ; what depends not on 
the fortuitous changes of this world, nor the 
blind sport of fortune, but remains unalterably 
fixed in the mind ; untouched, though this shat- 



RESIGNATION. 369 

tered globe shall fall in pieces, and bury us in 
the ruins. Though I do not lead a virtuous life, 
let it show me how I am, and of myself how 
weak ; how far from an independent being ; given 
as a sheep into the hands of the great Shepherd 
of all, on whom let us cast all our cares, for He 
careth for us. — Burke. 

A man is right and invincible, virtuous and 
on the road towards sure conquest, precisely 
while he joins himself to the great, deep law of 
the world, in spite of all superficial laws, tempor- 
ary appearances, profit - and - loss calculation ; — he 
is victorious while he co-operates with that great 
central law — not victorious otherwise : and surely 
his first chance of co-operating with it, or getting 
into the course of it, is to know with his own 
soul that it is — that it is good, and alone good. 
This is the soul of Islam ; it is properly the soul 
of Christianity; for Islam is definable as a con- 
fused form of Christianity : had Christianity not 
been, neither had it been. Christianity also com- 
mands us, before all, to be resigned to God. 
We are to take no counsel with flesh and blood ; 
give ear to no vain cavils, vain sorrows and 
wishes ; to know that we know nothing ; that 
the worst and cruellest to our eyes is not what 
it seems ; that we have to receive whatsoever 
befalls us as sent from God above, and say, " It 
is good and wise — God is great ! Though He 
slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Islam means 
in its way denial of self, — annihilation of self. 



370 WEALS OF LIFE. 

This is yet the highest wisdom that Heaven has 
revealed to our earth. — Carlyle. 

True resignation, which always brings with it 
the confidence that unchangeable goodness will 
make even the disappointment of our hopes and 
the contradictions of life conducive to some bene- 
fit, casts a grave but tranquil light over the 
prospect of even a toilsome and troubled life. — 
Humboldt. 

We must learn to suffer what we cannot 
evade. Our life, like the harmony of the world, 
is composed of contrary things, of several notes, 
sweet and harsh, sharp and fiat, sprightly and sol- 
emn ; and the musician who should only affect 
one of these, what would he be able to do ? He 
must know how to make use of them all, and to 
mix them ; and we, likewise, the goods and evils 
which are consubstantial with life : our being can- 
not subsist without this mixture, and the one are 
no less necessary to it than the other. — Mon- 
taigne. 

A man can even here be with God, so long 
as he bears God within him. We should be able 
to see without sadness our most holy wishes fade 
like sunflowers, because the sun above us still 
forever beams, eternally makes new, and cares for 
all ; and a man must not so much prepare himself 
for eternity as plant eternity in himself: eternity, 
serene, pure, full of depth, full of light, and of all 
else. — Richter. 



LIFE. 371 



W$ IFE supernal, fair and vernal, 
k"^ Is the glory of the story, — 
Via Crucis via Lucis : * 

Dawns in beauty born of duty; 
Joins thereafter Heaven's laughter, — 

Via Crucis via Lucis : 

Finds probation tribulation ; 
Onward presses and confesses, — 
Via Crucis via Lucis : 

Bursts the fetter of the letter; 
Reckons sorrow joy to-morrow, — 
Via Crucis via Lucis: 

To the Master in disaster 

Bravely clinging, journeys singing, — 

Via Crucis via Lucis: 

Ranges crownward, never downward, 
Always loving, always proving, — 
Via Crucis via Lucis : 

Dips forever from the River 
Everlasting, still forecasting, — 
Via Crucis via Lucis ; 

The way of the Cross the way of Light. 



372 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And presages all the ages 

In the sweetness of completeness, — 

Via Crucis via Lucis. 



There is a beautiful river, whose source is in 
perennial springs hidden from human eyes. 
Rains from heaven fall into it, over rocky bar- 
riers, with musical gurgling, like the gushing 
voice of blackbirds in the springtime ; and the 
water, as it rolls down, waves upward its incense 
of mist, which the sun kisses, and welcomes with 
a smile of rainbows. The river that receive the 
gentle cascade is broad and deep, and in some 
places so calm and clear that flowers on the 
banks nod to themselves in its mirror. 

But, as the stream travels on, the loose soil 
through which it passes mingles with the trans- 
lucent water and renders it turbid and discolored. 
Still, those who are far from the source, if they 
thirst for pure water, can obtain it by filtering 
out the dregs ; or if their vessel has been filled 
with muddy water by other hands, the sediments 
will sink to the bottom, if they quietly leave the 
water to the operation of its own laws: and 
thus they will be supplied with clean and whole- 
some drink. 

In the long course of the stream, trees fall 
into it in some places, and form snags which in- 
terrupt the free flow of the waters, and impede 
the progress of those who are coming up from 
below and trying to ascend to the source. Still 



LIFE. 373 

further down are stagnant pools, where alligators, 
resembling harmless logs, lie in wait, ready to 
devour whoever seeks to drink or bathe. 

But the worst of all is a strange hallucination 
which siezes upon many who come to obtain 
water for their own use. They bring vessels of 
all sizes ; some as large as a barrel, others no 
bigger than a thimble. But whether the vessels 
be large or small, each one, when he has filled 
his own, declares that he has the whole river in 
his possession, and that no other can have a drop 
of it unless it be obtained from his vessel. And 
not only does each one consider himself sole 
proprietor of the river, but he also assumes that 
the river is exactly in the shape of his particular 
vessel. If that is globular, he says the river is 
orb-shaped; if his vessel is a barrel, he declares 
the river to be long and circular ; if he scoops 
up a little of it with a clam-shell he insists that 
its only form is that of a clam-shell ; even so 
slight a variation as the attempt to dip with an 
oyster-shell gives rise to contention. So excited 
do all these become that each pelts the other 
with stones, to maintain for their respective ves- 
sels the exclusive monopoly of the river. Some- 
times a philosopher comes along, and says: "Do 
you not perceive, friends, that water takes the 
form of whatever it is put into ? And that each 
of you has only a small portion of the mighty 
river, in vessels of such shape and dimensions as 
you brought to it ? " 



374 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Then they all unite to throw stones at the 
philosopher; and while they are thus occupied., 
alligators lie in wait, slyly to seize some of the 
angry combatants. 

But far away from the discordant noise of 
hurling stones, the mighty river, fed by perennial 
springs, flows calmly on, with gentle lapsing 
music; furnishing pure drink to the thirsty, and 
health to those who bathe in its deep waters. — 
Mrs. L. M. Child. 

Life bears us on like the stream of a mighty 
river. Our boat at first glides down the narrow 
channel through the playful murmurings of the 
little brook, and the winding of the grassy bor- 
ders. The trees shed their blossoms over our 
young heads, the flowers on the brink seem to 
offer themselves to, our young hands ; we are 
happy in hope, and we grasp eagerly at the 
beauties around us ; but the stream hurries us 
on, and still our hands are empty. Our course 
in youth and manhood is along a wilder and 
deeper flood, amid objects more striking and 
magnificent. We are animated at the moving 
pictures of enjoyment and industry passing 
around us. We are excited at some short-lived 
disappointment. The stream bears us on, and 
our joys and griefs are alike left behind us. We 
may be shipwrecked, — we cannot be delayed ; 
whether rough or smooth, the river hastens to 
its home, till the roar of the ocean is in our 
ears, and the tossing of the waves is beneath our 



LIFE. 375 

feet, and the land lessens from our eyes, and the 
floods are lifted up around us, and we take our 
leave of earth and its inhabitants, until of our 
further voyage there is no witness save the 
Infinite and Eternal. — Bishop Heber. 

Life appears to me too short to be spent in 
nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, 
and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in 
this world ; but the time will come when, I trust, 
we shall put them off in putting off our corrupt- 
ible bodies : when debasement and sin will fall 
from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and 
only the spark will remain, — the impalpable prin- 
ciple of life and thought, pure as when it left the 
Creator to inspire the creature : whence it came, 
it will return, perhaps to pass through gradations 
of glory, — from the pale human soul to brighten 
to the seraph. . . . It is a creed in which I 
delight, to which I cling. It makes eternity a 
rest, a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. 
Besides, with this creed, revenge never worries 
my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts 
me, injustice never crushes me too low : I live 
in calm, looking to the end. — Charlotte Bronte. 

It is to live twice when you can enioy the 
recollection of your former life. — Martial. 

God proves us in this life, that He may the 
more plenteously reward us in the next.; — Wake. 

Christian life consists in faith and charity. — 
Luther. 



376 IDEA LS OF LIFE. 



,lt ©M. 



Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to 
His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself: that in the 
dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all 
things in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are on earth; 
even in Him. — Eph. i. 9, 10. 

!^|7HE flower unfolded by the sun, 
^^ The transient beauty of a day, 
Tells out the bloom of Heaven to one, 
And to another Earth's decay. 

The mountain kissed by sun and storm 
Proclaims the message of the sky, 

And, down beneath its mighty form, 
Sobs in Destruction's muffled cry. 

There is no lot, there is no life, 

Or be it high, or be it low, 
That does not share the groan and strife, 

The marvel of our weal and woe. 

The fairest things that fill the eye 
Are postured in a mournful light; 

And all their beauty seems to die 
To one who has too near a sight. 

Oh, all the language of the earth, 

In every syllable twofold, 
Utters the new eternal birth 

And sighs o'er something growing old. 



in one. 377 

And must it be forever so, 

This mockery of wretched man, 

All things like phantoms come and go, 
And hint no satisfying plan ? 

Vexed with the double speech below, 

I task the Holy, Perfect One, 
Who in the ages long ago 

Life's grand, eternal triumph won. 

Vexed with the double speech below, 
I turn and hear the Heavenly Voice, 

God, God in Christ whom all may know, 
And, soothed at last, rejoice, rejoice. 

For lo ! the darkness turns to light, 

Lit by the glory of the Cross ; 
For self therein is out of sight, 

And Gain remembers not the loss. 

And bathed in Love's Eternity, 

All things will feel their travail done, 

And, Tike the rivers in the sea, 
Be gathered up at last in One. 



The redemption of Man carries in its train 
the redemption of Nature. There is the picture 
set before us in the book of Genesis, of some- 
thing like the fall of Nature, when Man by trans- 
gression fell. Eden vanished ; Earth became a 
wilderness, Man became a pilgrim, his life became 
a march through the hungry, wasteful desert, 

25 



378 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



while his Paradise regained lay awaiting him be- 
yond the river of death. This is the poetic pic- 
ture of the Scripture ; and the study of the con- 
ditions of the life of Man and of the Creation, 
sustains the idea which lies behind it, that the 
sphere which surrounds Man, the whole world 
system which serves as the theatre of his life, is 
set, so to speak, to the pitch of his spiritual na- 
ture. As he has fallen into captivity to evil, it is 
in bondage to corruption ; as he rises through 
Redemption to regain his lost inheritance, the 
Creation, too, is in process of being redeemed. 
. . groaneth and travaileth in sympathy. Like 
Man, it is subject to vanity, it is full of discord, 
battle, and suffering, not that it may seem more 
homelike to the transgressor, but that it may 
help the process by which he is being saved. 
The day will come when man's redemption shall 
be complete ; when every knee shall bow, and 
every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord ; when peace shall reign through right- 
eousness in the wide human commonwealth, and 
sorrow and sighing shall be banished forever 
from the experience of the race. And then shall 
Man find himself face to face with a new, a 
fairer, a more blessed Creation ; a new Heaven 
and a new earth shall be the theatre for "the 
manifestation of the sons of God." — J. Baldwin 
Brown. 

And what is the breadth of Christ's Cross? 
My friends, it is as broad as the whole world ; 



m one. 379 

for He died for the whole worm, as it is written, 
" He is a propitiation, not for our sins only, but 
for the sins of the whole world;" and again, 
"God willeth that none should perish;" and 
again, "As by the offense, judgment came on all 
men to condemnation, even so by the righteous- 
ness of one, the gift came upon all men to justi- 
fication of life." 

And that is the breadth of Christ's Cross. 

And what is the length of Christ's Cross ? 
The length thereof, says an old father, signifies 
the time during which its virtue will last. 

How long, then, is the Cross of Christ? 
Long enough to last through all time. As long 
as there is a sinner to be saved ; as long as 
there is ignorance, sorrow, pain, death, or any- 
thing else which is contrary to God and hurtful 
to man in the universe of God, so long will 
Christ's Cross last. For it is written, He must 
reign till He hath put all enemies under His 
feet; and God is all in all. 

And that is the length of the Cross of Christ. 

And how high is Christ's Cross ? As high 
as the highest heaven, and the throne of God, 
and the bosom of the Father, — that bosom out 
of which forever proceeds all created things. 
Ay, as high as the highest heaven ; for, — if you 
will receive it, — when Christ hung upon the 
Cross, heaven came down to earth, and earth 
ascended into heaven. Christ never showed forth 
His Father's glory so perfectly as when, hanging 




380 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

upon the Cross, He cried in His death agony, 
" Father, forgive them for they know not what 
they do." Those words showed the true height 
of the Cross ; and caused St. John to know that 
his vision was true, and no dream, when he saw 
afterwards in the midst of the throne a lamb as 
it had been slain. 

And this is the height of the Cross of Christ. 

And how deep is the Cross of Christ ? This 
is a great mystery, and one which people in 
these days are afraid to look at ; and darken it 
of their own will, because they will neither be- 
lieve their Bible, nor the voice of their own 
hearts. 

But if the Cross of Christ be as high as 
heaven, then, it seems to me, it must also be as 
deep as hell, deep enough to reach the deepest 
sinner in the deepest pit to which he may fall. 
We know that He preached to the spirits in 
prison. We know that it is written, "As in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive." We know that when the wicked man 
turns from his wickedness, and does that which 
is lawful and right, he will save his soul alive. 
We know that in the very same chapter God 
tells us that his ways are not unequal — that 
He has not one law for one man, and another 
for another, or one law for one year and an- 
other for another. It is possible, therefore, that He 
has not one law for this life, and another for the life 
to come. Let us hope, then, that David's words 



IX ONE. 381 

may be true, after all, when speaking by the 
Spirit of God, he says, not only " If I ascend 
up to heaven, Thou art there," but " if I go down 
to hell, Thou art there also;" and let us hope 
that that is the depth of the Cross of Christ. 

At all events, my friends, let us believe that 
we shall find St. Paul's words true, when he says 
that Christ's love passes knowledge ; and there- 
fore that we shall find this also ; that however 
broad we may think Christ's Cross, it is broader 
still. However long, it is longer still. However 
high, it is higher still. However deep, it is deeper 
still. Yes, we shall find that St. Paul spoke sol- 
emn truth when he said, that Christ had ascended 
on high that He might fill all things ; that 
Christ filled all in all ; and that He must reign 
till the day when He shall give up the Kingdom 
to God, even the Father, that God may be all 
in all. — Charles Kingslev. 

God, who at sundry times and in divers man- 
ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us 
by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all 
things, by whom also He made the worlds ; who' 
being the brightness of His glory, and the ex- 
press image of His person, and upholding all 
things by the word of His power, when He had 
by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the 
right hand of the Majesty on high; being made 
so much better than the angels, as He hath by 
inheritance obtained a more excellent name than 
they. — Hebrews i. 1-4. 



382 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And what is the exceeding greatness of His 
power to us-ward who believe, according to the 
working of His mighty power, which He wrought 
in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, 
and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly 
places, far above all principality, and power, and 
might, and dominion, and every name that is 
named, not only in this world, but also in that 
which is to come : and hath put all things under 
His feet and gave Him to be the head over all 
things to the church, which is His body, the ful- 
ness of Him that filleth all in all. — Ephesians i. 
19-23. 

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, 
and given Him a name which is above every 
name: that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in 
earth, and things under the earth ; and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father. — Philip- 
pians 11. 9-1 1. 



S*p-K***8- 



If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, 
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. — Colossians III. 7. 

Not because I raise myself above something, but because I raise my- 
self to something do I approve myself. — Jacobi. 

A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attract- 
ive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness, 
poverty and affliction, convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and 
render deformity itself agreeable. — Audison. 

There is always a spot in our sunshine; it is the shadow of our- 
selves. — Carlyle. 

Honor and profit do not always lie in the same sack. 

— George Herbert. 

He that reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires and fears, 
;s more than a king. — Milton. 



(384) 




NOONING. 



»Ip JtemtlHitl flmk 



The Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the valley. 

— Song of Solomon ti. 9. 

,^\F all the wonderful plants that grow 
(2>< ^ On mountain, in forest and field, 
There are verily none of which I know 

Whose generous blossoms yield 
One -half the fragrance, one -half so sweet, 
As the Beautiful Plant that I daily meet. 

It blooms the first in the vernal time, 

And gay at the coming of June ; 
It ever outlives the Summer's prime : 

And when the Autumn - winds tune 
Their organs to play the dirge of death, 
It scorneth and shunneth their blasting breath. 

When Nature at length is in burial array, 
Her children all gone to the tomb, 

Will it ever know that wickedest day 
When it shall be out of its bloom ? 

Oh, no ; for every to - morrow doth bring 

To my Beautiful Plant the return of Spring. 

(385) 



386 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

It drinketh the wine from the cup of morn, 

And trembles with rare delight ; 
And the loving stars at even born 

Look down from their homes of light, 
And unto my heart forever say, 
Thou hast the beauty that lives for aye. 

And when I go forth to the strife of the world, 

And join the hurry and din, 
With banners of light in my soul unfurled, 

I forget not that all are kin, 
Throughout the one great household of God, 
Awake on earth or asleep in the sod. 

The present, the past, and the future are mine, 

And I am no longer my own : 
All things I behold in the light divine, 

Where nothing is ever alone, 
And beauty flows forth unto eager eyes, 
Surveying the earth or piercing the skies. 

In the world's isolation I cannot move, 

When I catch the glory of all 
That is ment by Universal Love, 

To push from the heart the wall 
Which is builded of hate and fear and doubt, 
And fences immortal companions out. 

My Beautiful Plant a-through my heart 

Diffuses such glory and cheer, 
I would never more from the garden depart 

Where it blossoms through all the year, 



THE BEAUTIFUL PLANT. 387 

And daily, I think, becomes more fair, 
Receiving the kisses of purer air. 

Oh who does not nourish so holy a thing 

Is the poorest and vilest of all ! 
Though he live unchallenged a very king, 

And a world respond to his call. 
Ah, such, I fear, when the earth is behind, 
The garden immortal will never find ; 

For this plant is akin to the Tree of Life, 

Blossoming under its shade, 
And serving to sweeten the toil and strife 

Which the Tempter for us has made, 
Until at last we climb by its power, 
So high as to pluck the heavenly dower. 

And then in truth of such wondrous worth, 

Its roots so deep in the soul, 
That when we are weary and done with the 
earth, 

It will go with us over the goal ; 
And there, at length, in its native clime, 
It will reach with its kindred a growth sublime. 



In the meanest thing of every day, no man 
liveth, no man dieth unto himself, so inwrapt and 
interfolded are human destinies in the continual 
action and reaction that goes on through life. 
And if it is thus with the outward course of 
things, dealing with what is material and secular, 
how much more so in that great unseen order 



388 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

where finer things are touched to surer issues, 
the spiritual life of man ! The Christian is one 
who in work and life and prayer " strengthens 
himself" for the sake of many; he belongs con- 
sciously to a kingdom in which there is nothing 
unrelated. 

And a time comes to the soul when individ- 
ualism becomes cramping, narrowing; when we 
feel conscious that we cannot breathe and move 
freely, eitjier in work or prayer, except through 
the universal organic whole 

What is Christianity itself, but living to the 
whole instead of living to the part? It gives the 
heart Christ instead of itself for its spring and 
centre; it says unto it, "Behold the Man;" not 
Paul now, nor Apollos, not even Jesus Christ 
Himself as a man ; if we have known Him as 
such in a merely personal relation, we know Him 
as such no more, but as the oreat High-Priest 
standing before God in the place of htunanity, 
whose sins, whose griefs and burdens, He has 
taken upon Himself, first-born among many breth- 
ren. Ecce Homo ! The earliest impression I ever 
received of Christ was from a colored engraving 
with these words beneath' it; I remember dis- 
tinctly the place where it used to hang ; the 
crown of thorns, the bleeding forehead, the kind 
and sorrowful countenance. I remember, as a 
very little child, asking what the two Latin words 
meant ; how long have I been in learning their 
full meaning ? — Mi^s Greenwell. 



THE BEAUTIFUL PLANT. 389 

Doubtless the memory of each one of us 
will furnish him with the picture of some member 
of a family whose very presence seemed to shed 
happiness: — a daughter, perhaps, whose light 
step, even in the distance, irradiated every one's 
countenance. What was the secret of such a 
one's power? What had she done? Absolutely 
nothing ; but radiant smiles, beaming good humor, 
the tact of divining what every one felt and 
every one wanted, told that she had got out of 
self, and learned to think for others ; so thac at 
one time it showed itself in deprecating the quar- 
rel, which lowering brows and raised tones 
already showed to be impending, by sweet words; 
at another, by smoothing an invalid's pillow ; at 
another, by soothing a sobbing child ; at another, 
by humoring and softening a father who had re- 
turned weary and ill-tempered from the irritating 
cares of business. None but she saw those 
things. None but a loving heart could see them. 
That was the secret of her heavenly power. 
Call you those things homely trifles ? By refer- 
ence to the character of Christ they rise into 
something quite sublime. For that is loving as 
He loved. And these trifles prepare for larger 
deeds. The one who will in trial be found capa- 
ble of great acts of love, is ever the one who is 
always doing considerate small ones. The Soul 
which poured itself out. to death upon the Cross 
for the human race, was the Spirit of Him who 
thought of the wants of the people, contrived 
for the rest of the disciples, and was thoughtful 
for a mother. — F. W. Robertson. 



390 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



br 



allpripxiit. 



Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. 

— St. Mark xvi. 15. 

#T HEAR, I hear the voices 
^ Of those heroic ones 
Through whose undying greatness 

One endless purpose runs : 
I feel their exaltation, 

Those levers of the world, 
And know their mission holdeth 

Till Time his wings hath furled. 

Oh, in the deathless glory 

Of those who lived of yore, 
The hero, saint, and martyr, 

I range forevermore, 
With joyful heart and thankful, 

So much of love it sees, 
For what the Lord hath given 

In His dear witnesses. 

But chief of all the voices 

That fall on human ears, 
Is that which groweth clearer 

Through all the lapse of years, 
The Master's Great Commission, 

His word of boundless range, 
Which travels through the ages, 

Unheeding time or change. 



BROTHERHOOD. 391 



O Master, Helper, Saviour, 

I see Thee as to - day 
Go up the Mount of Olives, 

Upon Thy homeward way, 
About to show the nations 

The wonder that was hid, 
The headstone of the corner 

Of God's Great Pyramid. 

And while expectant angels 

A bright, triumphal train, 
Are gathering to herald 

Their Lord to Heaven again, 
Thy little band and feeble 

I see around Thee there, 
The chosen ones and faithful 

Of all Thy loving care. 

Like meek and patient heroes 

Who heed God's bugle - call, 
Comes it at night or morning, 

Be it to rise or fall, 
Those humble ones and loving, 

All having ears to hear, 
Now hear a voice that lifts them 

To wondrous atmosphere. 

It is Thy last commandment, 
Thy word of boundless range, 

Which travels through the ages, 
Not heeding time or change : 



392 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Which places every hearer 

A servant in the van, 
And consecrates forever 

The Brotherhood of Man. 

A bold and great commission 

Intrusted now to them, 
A higher charge and nobler 

Than royal diadem ! 
A dear and precious treasure 

In earthen vessels here, 
Preserved for us in mercy 

Through many a wasting year! 

A treasure universal 

For all the sons of men, 
Till Thou at length in glory 

Shalt come to earth again ! 
O tidings good and joyful ! 

O sweet and blessed sound, 
Borne on by patient heralds 

In all the world around! 

Dear Master, Helper, Saviour, 

Thy messengers are still 
Abroad in every nation, 

To work Thy blessed will : 
The breath of heaven breathing, 

Salvation still they bear: 
Their feet upon the mountains, 

Like Thine, are very fair. 



BROTHERHOOD. 393 

Alike in cloud and sunshine, 

As steady as a star 
Which treads its pathway yonder, 

Their lives and labors are. 
Alike in shame and triumph, 

They look away beyond 
Earth's evanescent evil 

And never once despond. 

For God, they know, in wisdom, 

Sends both the good and ill, 
And with no selfish murmur 

They bide His sovereign will. 
Be theirs the fate of Stephen, 

Or that of loving John, 
Their works are known in heaven, 

And live forever on. 

For chief of all the voices 

That fall on human ears, 
Is that which groweth clearer 

Through all the lapse of years: 
Which ranges every hearer 

A servant in the van, 
And consecrates forever 

The Brotherhood of Man. 

It happened, once on a time, as men went to 
and fro in the world, who were interested in the 
arts, that they discovered, at different periods, 
and hidden away in many countries, portions, it 

26 



394 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

seemed, of exquisite statues, — a foot, an arm, a 
torso, a broken hand. Something superb in 
each of these made men recognize them at 
once as perfect. Each nation cherished their 
separate piece as an ideal of art; each drifted 
into a thousand suspicions as to the author and 
his intention ; each completed the statue from 
conjecture, according to their own ability. At 
last, owing to the decay of the nations, and to 
the rise of one upon their ruins, all the sev- 
eral pieces were collected in one museum. 
They were still considered as belonging to sep- 
arate nations and periods of art. Dissertations 
were written and lectures were delivered upon 
them ; the ideal completions which each nation 
had made of their several pieces were placed 
beside them, and the completions studied with 
infinite criticism. 

One day, however, when the artist world were 
collected in the museum, a man whom no one 
knew entered, and slowly went from room to 
room examining the famous remnants one after 
another, but passing by the completions of each 
with some indifference. At last he approached the 
group of artists : ' Sirs,' he said, ' I have exam- 
ined your famous pieces of sculpture, and their 
ideal restorations. The restorations are interest- 
ing as examples of art at different periods, but 
worthless as a foundation for any true ideal. 
But, did it never strike you that all your pieces 
are of the same time and by the same hand, and 



BROTHERHOOD. 395 

that you have but to bring them together out of 
their several rooms and unite them? Your ideal 
statue is among you, and you know it not ! 
When he had thus spoken, many laughed and 
some mocked, but a few were found to listen ; 
the greater part, however, as the stranger grew 
more earnest, became indignant — for what would 
become of their art theories if he were right? 
— and drove him out of the museum with igno- 
miny. But the few sought him out, and it is said 
that they entered the building by night and 
brought together the remnants, the stranger su- 
perintending, and found it even as he had said. 
They saw the statue grow, piece by piece, into 
unity, but at the end the head was wanting. A 
great cry of pity arose — ' What ! ' they wept, 
' shall we never see the ideal realized ? ' But the 
stranger, as they wept, drew from beneath his 
cloak the head, and crowned the statue with com- 
pleteness. And as he did so, he passed away 
and was seen no more. But the perfect thing 
remained — the pure ideal of divine art, fully real- 
ized at last. Then those few give up their the- 
ories, and their delight in the separate remnants 
and their restorations, and went abroad, taking 
with them the perfect thing, to preach a new 
kingdom of art ; and when men asked them to 
define and theorize art, they stept aside, and un- 
veiling the statue, said, " Look and see ; this is 
Art. If you can receive it, you, too, will become 
artists. This is all our definition, this is all our 



38(5 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

theory.' And some believed and others did not, 
but slowly the new ideal won its way, till it grew 
to be the rule and the model of the greater 
part of the artist world. 

Of what took place at the museum when the 
mockers found their pieces gone — of how they 
fought against the possessors of the statue, and 
denied that it had anything to do with their lost 
remnants ; of how they made counterfeits of 
these remnants, and clung to their ancient resto- 
rations as the true ideals — I need not tell ; nor 
yet of a more pitiable thing — of how in after- 
times the followers of the true ideal made false 
copies of it, modifying it, and introducing their 
own ideas into it, and held up these, and not 
the perfect statue, for the imitation and aspira- 
tion of the world of art. Are not these things 
written in history ? But again and again, the one 
effort of all true artists since has been to bring 
back men to the contemplation of that single 
figure. 

This parable illustrates what I have been say- 
ing. The scattered truths of the world were 
truths from God. Men wove diverse religions 
round the diverse truths. At last Christ came, 
and did not reject ; but brought together in 
Himself the previous truths — made them for the 
first time fit into one another, so that each took 
its place ; and then crowned them with the 
completing and new truth — the truth of the 
Divine Man. — Stopford A. Brooke. 



BROTHERHOOD. 397 

It is not life to live for one's self alone. 
Let us help one another. — Menander. 

I am a man, and nothing that concerns human 
beings is indifferent to me. — Terence. 

The universe is but one great city, full of 
beloved ones, divine and human, by nature en- 
deared to each other. — Epictetus. 

Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the 
universal brotherhood which binds all men to- 
gether, under the common Father of Nature. — 
Quintillian. 

To love and serve all men is to delight in 
God. — Mencius. 

My doctrine makes no distinction between 
high and low, rich and poor. It is like water 
which washes and purifies all alike. It is like 
the sky, for it has room for all ; for men and 
women, boys and girls, rich and poor. — From 
the Hindu. 

God, who creates and inspires men, willed 
that they should be equal. He made them all 
capable of wisdom ; He imposed the same laws 
upon all ; and He has promised immortality to 
all. As He furnished good for all, and gives the 
sweet repose of sleep to all, so does He give 
capacity for virtue to all. With Him, no one is 
a slave, and no one is a master. He is the 
Father of all, and we are all, by equal right, His 
children. — Lactantius. 

The human heart is like heaven : the more 
angels, the more room. — Frederika Bremer. 



398 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

I prefer my family to myself; my country to 
my family; and the human race to my country. 
— Fenelon. 

There are some races more cultured and ad- 
vanced than others : more ennobled by education. 
But there are no races more noble than others. 
All are equally destined for freedom. — Alexan- 
der von Humboldt. 

God hath made of one blood all nations of 
men to dwell on the face of the earth . . . 
that they should seek the Lord, if haply they 
might feel after Him and find Him, though He 
be not far from every one of us ; for in Him 
we live, and move, and have our being. — Acts 
xvii. 26, 27, 28. 



JJfotprotxjk 



It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from 
the earth. — Daniel Webster. 

d^HIS, this is eloquence, 
*** The language of the heart, 
That native source of excellence 
Above the realm of art. 

This, this is eloquence, 

To beat a falsehood down, 



ELOQUENCE. 399 

Too brave to think of consequence, 
And give to Truth the crown. 

This, this is eloquence, 

The calm sincerity, 
Which is its own sure evidence, 

Of manly charity. 

This, this is eloquence, 

To set the erring right, 
Who through the tears of penitence 

Go struggling into light. 

And this is eloquence, • 

The power of sacrifice, 
That everlasting influence 

Which reaches to the skies. 



Eloquence is the language of nature, and can- 
not be learnt in the schools : the passions are 
powerful pleaders, and this very silence, like that 
of Garrick, goes directly to the soul. — Colton. 

In whom does it not enkindle passion ? Its 
matchless excellence is applicable everywhere, in 
all classes of life. The rich and the poor ex- 
perience the effects of its magic influence. It 
excites the soldier to the charge and animates 
him to the conflict. The miser it teaches to 
weep over his error, and to despise the de- 
grading betrayer of his peace. It convicts the 
infidel of his depravity, dispels the cloud that 
obscures his mind, and leaves it pure and ele- 



400 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

vated. The guilty are living- monuments of its 
exertion, and the innocent hail it as the vindi- 
cator of their violated rights and the preserver 
of their sacred reputation. How often in the 
courts of justice does the prisoner behold his 
arms unshackled, his character freed from sus- 
picion, and his future left open before him with 
all its hopes of honors, station, and dignity ! 
And how often, in the halls of legislation, does 
Eloquence unmask corruption, expose intrigue, 
and overthrow tyranny! In the cause of mercy 
it is omnipotent. It is bold in the conscious- 
ness of its superiority, fearless and unyielding 
in the purity of its motives. All opposition it 
destroys ; all power it defies. — Melvill. 

Great is the power of eloquence ; but never 
is it so great as when it pleads alone with 
nature, and the culprit is a child strayed from 
his duty, and returned to it again with tears. 
— Sterne. 



Ifaratf* 



sWAME, which men desire, 
^ Great men and mighty in creative toil, 
Does not become a self-consuming fire, 
To burn in vain life's oil ; 



FA ME. 401 

But a fiery purge 
And secret goad, bestowed by Providence, 
To make them braver, better men, and urge. 

Them on to excellence. 

Naught but excellence, 
Their hearts so teach, has any right to live ; 
And hence they toil so terribly, and hence 

To Art their lives they give. 

Comforted through her, 
The virgin mate of excellence alone, 
They feel the pulse of Fame their besoms stir, — 

That flower which must be blown. 

They are comforted, — 
The immortelle yet unproclaimed their own ; 
For Fame is sweet, — Fame after one is dead, 

In toilful life unknown. 

God be praised for Fame, 
The shining of His sweet munificence, 
Till all find Him, in striving for a name, 

The only Excellence. 



The advocates for the love of fame allege in 
its vindication that it is a passion natural and 
universal ; a flame lighted by heaven, and always 
burning with greatest vigor in the most enlarged 
and elevated minds : that the desire of being 
praised by posterity implies a resolution to de- 
serve their praises, and that the folly charged 



402 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

upon it is only a noble and disinterested gener- 
osity, which is not felt, and therefore not under- 
stood, by those who have been always accustomed 
to refer everything to themselves, and whose self- 
ishness has contracted their understandings: that 
the soul of man, formed for eternal life, naturally 
springs forward beyond the limits of corporeal 
existence, and rejoices to consider herself as co- 
operating with future ages, and as co-extended 
with endless duration : that the reproach urged 
with so much petulance, the reproach of laboring 
for what cannot be enjoyed, is founded on an 
opinion which may with great probability be 
doubted ; for since we suppose the powers of the 
soul to be enlarged by its separation, why should 
we conclude that its knowledge of sublunary 
transactions is contracted or extinguished? — Dr. 
Johnson. 

I cannot believe that any man, who deserved 
fame, ever labored for it, that is, directly. For 
as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it 
would be like the attempt to project a shadow 
before its substance was obtained. Many, how- 
ever, have so fancied : " I write, I paint, for 
fame," has often been repeated ; it should have 
been, " I write, I paint, for reputation." All anx- 
iety, therefore, about Fame should be placed to 
the account of reputation. — Washington Allston. 

How constantly has mortification accompanied 
triumph ! with what secret sorrow has that praise 
been received from strangers denied to us by 



FAME. 403 

our friends ! Nothing astonishes me more than 
the envy which attends literary fame, and the 
unkindly depreciation which waits upon the writer. 
Of every species of fame it is the most ideal and 
apart : it would seem to interfere with no one. 
It is bought by a life of labor; generally, also, of 
seclusion and privation. It asks its honors only 
from all that is most touching and most elevated 
in humanity. What is the reward that it craves? 
— to lighten many a solitary hour, and to spir- 
itualize a world that were else too material. 
What is the requital that the Athenians of the 
earth give to those who have struggled through 
the stormy water, and the dark night, for their 
applause? — Both reproach and scorn.. If the 'au- 
thor have — and why should he be exempt from? 
— the faults of his kind, with what greedy readi- 
ness are they seized upon and exaggerated ! 
How ready is the sneer against his weakness or 
his error ! What hours of feverish misery have 
been passed, what bitter tears have been shed, 
over the unjust censure and the personal sar- 
casm ! The imaginative feel such wrong far 
beyond what those of less sensitive temperament 
can dream. — L. E. Landon. 



404 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



£E)ASTORS with Christ's own sandals shod, 
^ To make the world more fair, 
Like Abraham, the Friend of God, 
Go forth, not knowing where. 

"Workers together with the Lord, 

They labor at their best, 
Forever faithful to His Word, 

And that alone is rest. 

Like Judah's Lion, firm they stand 

In their appointed place, 
And, like the Lamb through all the land, 

They carry grace for grace. 

O all ye people, pray for them 

Who choose a servant's part, 
And ye shall be their diadem, 

And God shall be their heart. 



Recollect for your encouragement the reward 
that awaits the faithful minister. Such is the mys- 
terious condescension of divine grace, that though 
it reserves to itself the exclusive honor of being 
the fountain of all, yet, by the employment of 
human agency in the completion of its designs, it 
contrives to multiply its gifts, and to lay a foun- 



PASTORS. 405 

dation for eternal rewards. When the church, in 
the perfection of beauty, shall be presented to 
Christ as a bride adorned for her husband, the 
faithful pastor will appear as the friend of the 
bridegroom, who greatly rejoices because of the 
bridegroom 's voice. His joy will be the joy of his 
Lord, — inferior in degree, but of the same nature, 
and arising from the same sources : while he will 
have the peculiar happiness of reflecting that he 
has contributed to it, contributed, as an humble 
instrument, to that glory and felicity of which he 
will be conscious he is utterly unworthy to par- 
take. To have been himself the object of mercy, 
to have been the means of imparting it to others, 
and of dispensing the unsearchable riches of 
Christ, will produce a pleasure which can never 
be adequately felt or understood until we see 
Him as He is. — Robert Hall. 

There is nothing noble in a clergyman but 
burning zeal for the salvation of souls ; nor any- 
thing poor in his profession but idleness and 
worldly spirit. — Law. 

God is the fountain of honor, and the conduit 
by which He conveys it to the sons of men are 
virtues and generous practices. Some, indeed, 
may please and promise themselves high mat- 
ters from full revenues, stately palaces, court in- 
terests, and great dependences. But that which 
makes the clergy glorious, is to be knowing in 
their profession, unspotted in their lives, active 
and laborious in their charges, bold and reso- 



406 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

lute in opposing seducers, though never so potent 
and illustrious ; and, lastly, to be gentle, courte- 
ous, and compassionate to all. These are our 
robes and our maces, our escutcheons and highest 
titles of honor. — South. 



Jfetl 

JM Y Saviour, ,when I think of Thee, 
e> ^ And all Thou didst for love of me, 
I cry for grace, that I may know 
How I Thy love may others show. 

For this, O Lord, is mine to do, 
And to my work I would be true, 
To lead Thine erring ones to see 
Thou lovest them as well as me. 

Do Thou in this my efforts aid, 
And with Thy love my soul pervade, 
Until a guiding flame it burn, 
And wandering ones to Thee return. 

Do Thou in this my labor bless, 
And many unto righteousness 
Shall I at length, O Lord, incline, 
And as the stars forever shine. 



ZEAL. 407 

The only true zeal is that which is guided by 
a good light in the head, and that which consists 
of good and innocent affections in the heart. — 
Sprat. 

To have co-operated in any degree towards 
the accomplishment of that purpose of the Deity 
to reconcile all things to Himself by reducing 
them to the obedience of His Son, which is the 
ultimate end of all His works, — to be the means 
of recovering though it were but an inconsider- 
able portion of a lapsed and degenerate race to 
eternal happiness, will yield a satisfaction exactly 
commensurate to the force of our benevolent sen- 
timents and the degree of our loyal attachment to 
the Supreme Potentate. The consequences in- 
volved in saving a soul from death, and hiding 
a multitude of sins, will be duly appreciated in 
that world where the worth of souls and the 
malignity of sin are fully understood ; while to 
extend the triumphs of the Redeemer, by forming 
Him in the hearts of men, will produce a trans- 
port which can only be equalled by the gratitude 
and love we shall feel towards the Source of All 
Good. — Robert Hall. 

When I think, after the experience of one life, 
what I could and would do in an amended edition 
of it ; what I could and would do, more and bet- 
ter than I have done, for the cause of humanity, 
of temperance, and of peace ; for breaking the 
rod of the oppressor ; for the higher education 
of the world, and especially for the higher educa- 



408 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

tion of the best part of it, — woman : when I think 
of these things, I feel the Phoenix - spirit glowing 
within me ; I pant, I yearn, for another warfare 
in behalf of right, in hostility to wrong, where, 
without furlough, and without going into winter - 
quarters, I would enlist for another fifty years' 
campaign, and fight it out for the glory of God 
and the welfare of man. — Horace Mann. 

No man is fervent and zealous as he ought, 
but he that prefers religion before business, char- 
ity before his own ease, the relief of his brother 
before money, Heaven before secular regards, 
and God before his friend or interest. Which 
rule is not to be understood absolutely, and in 
particular instances, but always generally ; and 
when it descends to particulars, it must be in 
proportion to circumstances, and by their proper 
measures. — Jeremy Taylor. 



— e,-i£3®«saf©- 



3falur% 



THE GOLDEN BOUGH. 



OOK up, my soul, the heavens are blue 
J The Golden Bough is always there ; 




THE MATIN-BELL. 



NATURE. 409 

And One there is forever true, — 
'Tis thou that art both foul and fair. 

Thy sins, the clouds that are so black! 

Find out the One and they will flee, 
No more to hide His face come back ; 

And then all beauty thou shalt see. 

To thee kind Nature ever sings, 
Forever chants some gentle song 

To tell thee of the King of kings, 
To whom alone thou dost belong. 

She dandles thee upon her knee, 

This mother of all things below, 
And frowns and smiles to fashion thee 

Till thou thy other Parent know. 

The Golden Bough her token is 
That thou hast pierced her mystery, 

And found the dear perennial bliss, — 
The bliss of immortality. 

Look up, my soul, the heavens are blue: 
The Golden bough is always there, 

And One who is forever true 

Bestows that Bough on all the fair. 



It is strange to observe the callousness of 
some men, before whom all the glories of 
heaven and earth pass in daily succession with- 
out touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, 

27 



410 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of 
those who pretend to sensibility, how many are 
there to whom the lustre of the rising or the 
setting sun, the sparkling concave of the mid- 
night sky, the mountain forest tossing and rear- 
ing to the storm, or warbling with all the mel- 
odies of a summer evening ; the sweet inter- 
change of hill and dale, shade and sunshine, 
grove, lawn, and water, which an extensive land- 
scape offers to the view ; the scenery of the 
ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous, 
and the many pleasing varieties of the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms, could never afford so 
much real satisfaction as the steam and noise of 
a ball - room, the insipid fiddling and squeaking 
of an opera, or the vexations and wranglings of 
a card - table. — Beattie.' 

There is a religion in everything around us — 
a calm and holy religion in the unbreathing 
things of nature, which man would do well to 
imitate. It is a meek and blessed influence, 
stealing in, as it were, unawares upon the heart ; 
it comes quietly, and without excitement ; it has 
no terror, no gloom, in its approaches ; it does 
not rouse up the passions ; it is untrammelled by 
the creeds, and unshadowed by the superstitions 
of man ; it is fresh from the hands of its Author, 
glowing from the immediate presence of the 
Great Spirit, which pervades and quickens it ; it 
is written on the arched sky ; it looks out from 
every star ; it is on the sailing cloud and in the 






NATURE. 411 

invisible wind ; it is among the hills and valleys 
of the earth, where the shrubless mountain - top 
pierces the thin atmosphere of eternal winter, or 
where the mighty forest fluctuates before, the 
strong wind with its dark waves of green foliage; 
it is spread out, like a legible language, upon 
the broad face of the unsleeping ocean; it is the 
poetry of nature ; it is this which uplifts the 
spirit within us until it is strong enough to over- 
look the shadows of our place of probation ; 
which breaks, link after link, the chain that 
binds us to materiality ; and which opens to our 
imagination a world of spiritual beauty and holi- 
ness. — Ruskin. 

As a countenance is made beautiful by the 
soul's shining through it, so the world is beautiful 
by the shining through it of God. — Jacobi. 

How this magnificent temple of Nature exalts 
and enlarges the human soul ! The holy silence 
of night is spread around us ; above our heads, 
the bright celestial luminaries are suspended, like 
lamps ; on one side is some lingering shimmer of 
the evening red ; on the other, the moon softly 
rises up from behind the shadows of the forest. 
At such moments the soul is deeply impressed 
with the beauty and the nothingness of earth. 
What refreshment God has provided for us on 
this star, with sun and moon, those two fair 
lights of heaven, alternately conducting us 
through life ! Yet how low, and small, and van- 
ishing is the speck of earth, compared with the 



412 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

measureless splendor and glory of suns, stars, 
and worlds ! Oh, how grand is the dwelling in 
which the Creator has placed me ! How fair by 
night and by day ! That uttermost star lights 
me on my way ; the harmony of all the stars, 
the music of spiritual ideas and relations, accom- 
panies me through the whole of life's course. — 
Herder. 

I am ; and lately I was not. But whence ? 
How ? Whereto ? The answer lies around, writ- 
ten in all colors and motions; uttered in all tones 
of jubilee and wail; in thousand -figured, thou- 
sand - voiced, harmonious Nature ! But where is 
the cunning eye and ear, to whom that God - 
written apocalypse will yield articulate meaning ? 
Creation lies before us, like a glorious rainbow ; 
but the sun that made it lies behind us, is hidden 
from us. — Carlyle. 

Nature never deceives you : the rocks, the 
mountains, the streams, always speak the same 
language ; a shower of snow may hide the ver- 
dant woods in spring, a thunder - storm may ren- 
der the blue, limpid streams foul and turbulent ; 
but these effects are rare and transient ; in a few 
hours, or at most in a few days, all the sources 
of beauty are renovated. And nature affords no 
continued trains of misfortunes and miseries, such 
as depend upon the constitution of humanity ; no 
hopes forever blighted in the bud, no beings, full 
of life, beauty, and promise, taken from us in the 
prime of youth. Her fruits are all balmy and 



NATURE. 413 

sweet ; she affords none of those blighted ones, 
so common in the life of man, and so like the 
fabled apples of the Dead Sea, fresh and beauti- 
ful to the sight, but, when tasted, full of bitter- 
ness and ashes. — Sir Humphry Davy. 

Nature will be reported : all things are en- 
gaged in writing its history. The planet, the 
pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The roll- 
ing rock leaves its scratches on the mountain, 
the river its channels in the soil, the animal its 
bones in the stratum, the fern and leaf their 
modest epitaph in the coal. The fallen drop 
makes its sculpture in the sand or stone ; not a 
footstep in the snow, or along the ground, but 
prints in characters more or less lasting a map 
of its march ; every act of man inscribes itself in 
the memories of his fellows, and in his own face. 
The air is lull of sounds, the sky of tokens, the 
ground of memoranda and signatures ; and every 
object is covered over with hints which speak to 
the intelligent. — Hugh Miller. 

In nature all is managed for the best, with 
perfect frugality and reserve, profuse to none, but 
bountiful to all ; never employing on one thing 
more than enough, but with exact economy re- 
trenching the superfluous, and adding force to 
what is principal to everything. — Shaftesbury. 

The Author of nature has not given laws to the 
universe which, like the institutions of men, carry 
in themselves the elements of their own destruc- 
tion. He has not permitted in His works any 



414 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

symptom of infancy or old age, or any sign by 
which we may estimate either their future or 
their past duration. He may put an end, as He 
no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system 
at some determinate period of time ; but we may 
rest assured that this great catastrophe will no.t 
be brought about by the laws now existing, and 
that it is not indicated by anything which we 
perceive. — John Playfair. 

Nature, the handmaid of God Almighty, hath 
nothing but good advice, if we make researches 
into the true reason of things. — James Howell. 

Nature knows no pause in progress and de- 
velopment, and attaches her curse on ail inaction. 
— Goethe. 



..ra^fo- 



©Ipajfitfom* 



PERENNIAL sunshine of the heart, 
Which keeps our life in flower 
Through some mysterious, native art, 
So marvellous in power. 

The swift adjustment to the best 

Amid the outward gloom, 
No lack of sunshine in the breast, 

For darkness there no room. 



CHEERFULNESS. 415 

Repose in God's good providence, 
Which in both smile and frown 

Displays His grand beneficence, 
And infinite renown. 

The calmness of a hidden life 

Of unproclaimed delight, 
With blessedness of duty rife, 

And God to keep it bright. 

The sweet contagious radiance 

Which does a work divine, 
In lighting others with its glance, 

Till they begin to shine. 



Give us, O give us the man who sings at his 
work ! Be his occupation what it may, he is 
equal to any of those who follow the same pur- 
suit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the 
same time, — he will do it better, — he will perse- 
vere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue 
whilst he marches to music. The very stars are 
said to make harmony as they revolve in their 
spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerful- 
ness, altogether past calculation its powers of en- 
durance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must 
be uniformly joyous, — a spirit all sunshine, — 
graceful from very gladness, — beautiful because 
bright: — Carlyle. 

Be cheerful, no matter what reverse obstruct 
your pathway, or what plagues follow in your 



416 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

trail to annoy you. Ask yourself what is to be 
gained by looking or feeling sad when troubles 
throng around you, or how your condition is to 
be alleviated by abandoning yourself to despond- 
ency. If you are a young man nature designed 
you to " be of good cheer ; " and should you find 
your road to fortune, fame, or respectability, or 
any other boon to which your young heart as- 
pires, a little thorny, consider it all for the best, 
and that these impediments are only thrown in 
your way to induce greater efforts and more pa- 
tient endurance on your part. Far better spend 
a whole life in diligent, aye, cheerful and unre- 
mitting toil, though you never attain the pinnacle 
of your ambitious desires, than to turn back at 
the first appearance of misfortune, and allow de- 
spair to unnerve your energies, or sour your 
naturally sweet and cheerful disposition. If you 
are the softer, fairer portion of humanity, be 
cheerful ; though we know that most afflictions 
are sweet to you when compared with disappoint- 
ment and neglect, yet let hope banish despair 
and ill forebodings. Be cheerful ; do not brood 
over fond hopes unrealized, until a chain, link 
after link, is fastened on each thought, and 
wound around the heart. Nature intended you 
to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and so- 
cial life, and not the traveling monument of de- 
spair and melancholy. — Sir Arthur Helps. 

If we consider cheerfulness in three lights, 
with regard to ourselves, to those we converse 



CHEERFULNESS. 417 

with, and to the great Author of our being, it 
will not a little recommend itself on each of these 
accounts. The man who is possessed of this ex- 
cellent frame of mind is not only easy in his 
thoughts, but a perfect master of all the powers 
and faculties of his soul. His imagination is 
always clear, and his judgment undisturbed; his 
temper is even and unruffled, whether in action 
or in solitude. He comes with relish to all those 
goods which nature has provided for him, tastes 
all the pleasures of the creation which are poured 
about him, and does not feel the full weight of 
those accidental evils which may befall him. 

If we consider him in relation to the persons 
whom he converses with, it naturally produces 
love and good will towards him. A cheerful 
mind is not only disposed to be affable and 
obliging, but raises the same good humor in 
those who come within its influence. A man 
finds himself pleased, he does not know why, 
with the cheerfulness of his companion. It is like 
a sudden sunshine that awakens a secret delight 
in the mind, without her attending to it. The 
heart rejoices of its own accord, and naturally 
flows out into friendship and benevolence towards 
the person who has so kindly an effect upon it. 

When I consider this cheerful state of mind 
in its third relation, I cannot but look upon it as 
a constant habitual gratitude to the great Author 
of nature. An inward cheerfulness is an implicit 
praise and thanksgiving to Providence under all 



418 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

its dispensations. It is a kind of acquiescence in 
the state wherein we are placed, and a secret 
approbation of the Divine Will in his conduct 
toward man. — Addison. 

Between levity and cheerfulness there is a 
wide distinction ; and the mind which is most 
open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheer- 
fulness. It has been remarked that transports of 
intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes 
from the dark cloud, and that in proportion to 
the violence of the effulgence is the succeeding 
gloom. Levity may be the forced production of 
folly or vice ; cheerfulness is the natural off- 
spring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is 
an occasional agitation ; the other a permanent 
habit. The one degrades the character; the 
other is perfectly consistent with the dignity of 
reason, and the steady and manly spirit of relig- 
ion. To aim at a constant succession of high 
and vivid sensations of pleasure is an idea of 
happiness perfectly chimerical. Calm and tem- 
perate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to 
man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise 
our state ; and in fact depress our joys by en- 
deavoring to heighten them. Instead of those 
fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity with which 
the world would allure us, religion confers upon 
us a cheerful tranquillity. Instead of dazzling us 
with meteors of joy which sparkle and expire, it 
sheds around us a calm and steady light, more solid 
more equal, and more lasting. — Hugh Blair. 



CHEERFULNESS. 419 

The true basis of cheerfulness is love, hope, 
and patience. Love evokes love, and begets 
loving- kindness. Love cherishes hopeful and 
generous thoughts of others. It is charitable, 
gentle, and truthful. It is a discerner of good. 
It turns to the brightest side of things, and its 
face is ever directed towards happiness. It sees 
" the glory in the grass, and the sunshine on the 
flower." It encourages happy thoughts, and lives 
in an atmosphere of cheerfulness. It costs noth- 
ing, and yet is invaluable ; for it blesses its pos- 
sessor, and grows up in abundant happiness in 
the bosoms of others. Even its sorrows are 
linked with pleasures, and its very tears are 
sweet. — Smiles. 

Kind words cost no more than unkind ones. 
Kind words produce kind actions, not only on 
the part of him to whom they are addressed, but 
on the part of him by whom they are employed ; 
and this not incidentally only, but habitually, in 
virtue of the principle of association. — Ben- 
tham. 

Power itself hath not one- half the might of 
gentleness. — Leigh Hunt. 

Good temper is nine- tenths of Christianity. — 
Bishop Wilson. 

Gayety and courage, — innocent gayety and 
rational, honorable courage, — are the best medi- 
cine for young men, and for old men too; for 
all men against sad thoughts. — Luther. 

Go forward with hope and confidence. This 



420 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

is the advice given thee by an old man, who 
has had a full share of the burden and heat of 
life's day. We must ever stand upright, happen 
what may, and for this end we must cheerfully 
resign ourselves to the varied influences of this 
many- colored life. You may call this levity, and 
you are partly right, — for flowers and colors are 
but trifles light as air, — but such levity is a con- 
stituent portion of our human nature, without 
which it would sink under the weight of time. 
While on earth we must play with earth, and 
with that which blooms and fades upon its breast. 
The consciousness of this mortal life being but 
the way to a higher goal by no means precludes 
our playing with it cheerfully ; and, indeed, we 
must do so, otherwise our energy in action will 
entirely fail. — Perthes. 



fflmplilifltt* 



,M\ THOU that dost so mightily 
<a ^~ Compete for highest places, 
Be on thy guard lest utterly 
Thou miss the highest graces. 



COMPETITION. 421 

Thy heart shall find the noblest things 

What time thou truly servest, 
And, in thy deepest hungerings, 

Thy manliness preservest. 

God's blessed things are free as air 
Through all the world before thee, 

To Love and Duty everywhere 
An ever - present glory. 

But him who puts his manhood off 

To gain a shining bubble, 
Will fiery serpents sting and scoff, 

And make his judgment double. 



There are, I think, more good words to be 
said against Competition than for it. No doubt, 
it is a great incentive to exertion ; but there its 
function for good begins and ends. It is no 
friend to Love ; and is first cousin, with no re- 
moves, to Envy. Then it deranges and puts 
quite out of place the best motives for exertions. 
" Read your book because that other boy is read- 
ing his, and you will be beaten in the contest 
with him, if you do not take care." Such is the 
motive that competition administers, but it says 
nothing about learning being a good thing for 
itself. Consequently, when the competitors are 
parted, the book is apt to drop out of the hand 
of him who chiefly used it as a storehouse of 
zveapons. 

Then, again, when education has been greatly 



422 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

built upon motives of competition, excellence is 
made too much of, and moderate proficiency is 
sadly discouraged. A very injurious effect is 
thus produced upon the mind of the person who 
has been used to compete. He, or she, thinks, 
" If I am not everything, I am nothing," and de- 
clines to sing, or to play, or to draw, or to go 
on with some accomplishment, because it has 
been ascertained by competition and examination, 
at a certain time of life, that other people could 
do better. The world loses a great deal by this ; 
and, moreover, it is by no means certain that 
inferiority in anything, at one time of life, pre- 
cludes excellence in that same thing at another 
time of life. 

Competition, however, will not cease to be 
urgently employed as a motive, indeed as a first 
motive, until the mass of mankind become real 
Christians — an event which does not seem likely 
to happen in our time. The practical object, 
therefore, is to see what limits and restraints can 
be applied to competition. I should propose 
three : — 

i. Do not apply it to the very young, for two 
reasons. In the first place, experience shows 
that, for the mere acquisition of knowledge, it 
does not answer to work the brain early ; and 
that children that are somewhat let alone as re- 
gards learning, surpass the others when the time 
for diligent study comes. I do not pretend to 
define this time : that is a matter upon which 



COMPETITION. 423 

those only who are skilled in education can pro- 
nounce. 

The second reason is, that it is well, morally 
speaking, to let children get the habit of regard- 
ing their fellows as friends and playmates rather 
than as rivals. 

2. Never apply competition as a motive in 
a family. Looked at in the most businesslike 
and worldly way, it does not pay. Let us take 
a familiar and domestic instance, for abstract 
talk, though it sounds grandly, seldom leads to 
much result. A father has two sons, James and 
Charles. James is always down in time for 
breakfast : Charles is apt to be late. Let the 
father praise and encourage James for his early 
rising, but not in Charley's presence. And let 
him (the father) administer good advice, or 
blame, to Charley, in the matter of early rising, 
without saying one word about Jamesie's merits, 
or holding him up for a model to be followed 
— and disliked. It is far more important for the 
family interests that Charley's love for Jamesie 
should not be diminished in the least, than that 
he should be incited by competition with his 
brother to get up early. That splendid copy- 
book, saying — I wonder ' who first said it ? — it 
must have been the eighth wise man of Greece 
— Comparisons are odious — is especially true in 
domestic life. And the most unpleasant and 
odious comparisons are always brought out to 
incite to competition. 



424 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

3. If, for purposes of education, you must, 
at some period of life, have earnest, I would 
almost say fierce, competition, at any rate let it 
be as little individual as possible. Let the object 
for a youth be, to get into a certain class, not to 
beat certain other youth or youths. The riding 
school seems to furnish a good model. Put a 
bar up and say, "All those that leap over this 
shall be considered good horsemen ; " and then 
the youths who do succeed in leaping over it, 
will congratulate one another, and have a feeling 
of pleasant companionship, rather than of bitter 
rivalry with each other. You may have as many 
bars as you like, of different heights, in order to 
test different degrees of excellence in horseman- 
ship ; but do not inquire too curiously into the 
exact merits of each individual rider, and seek to 
put him in what you may call his proper place. 
That will be found out soon enough when they 
all come to ride across the country, — the difficult 
country of public or professional life. 

After the foregoing illustrations, which are of 
a very homely character, it may seem a some- 
what abrupt transition to revert to religious con- 
siderations. But I cannot conclude this short 
essay without remarking that competition is not 
a thing much encouraged in the Best of Books 
and by the Divinest of Teachers. There is a 
command — the great command — about loving one 
another, but none about competing with one 
another. Yes ; perhaps there is (at any rate an 



COLD-WATER POURERS. 425 

implied command) to compete for the lower 
place. — Sir Arthur Helps. 



i&Ifr-ll[abi] )ftmr*r$* 



c^pHEIR lives are but this epigraph, 
cs *° Which serves them for an epitaph: 

In all new things they found a flaw, 
And never once a virtue saw. 

Ah, when they find their way to heaven, 
Will heaven for new things be forgiven? 



Regarding, one day, in company with a 
humorous friend, a noble vessel of a somewhat 
novel construction, sailing slowly out of port, he 
observed, " What a quantity of cold water some- 
body must have had down his back ! " In my 
innocence I supposed he alluded to the wet work 
of the artizans who had been building the vessel ; 
but when I came to know him better I found 
that this was the form of comment he always in- 
dulged in when contemplating any new and great 
work, and that his somebody was the designer of 
the vessel. My friend had carefully studied the 



426 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

art of discouragement, and there was a class of 
men whom he designated simply as " cold-water 
pourers." It was most amusing to hear him de- 
scribe the lengthened suffering of the man who 
first designed a wheel ; of him who first built a 
boat; and of the adventurous personage who 
first proposed the daring enterprise of using but- 
tons instead of fishes' bones to fasten the scanty 
raiment of some savage tribe. Warming with his 
theme, he would become quite eloquent in de- 
scribing the long career of discouragement which 
these rash men had brought upon themselves, 
and which, he said, to his knowledge, must have 
shortened their lives. He invented imaginary 
dialogues between the unfortunate inventor, say of 
the wheel, and his particular friend, some eminent 
cold-water pourer. For, as he said, every man 
has some such friend, who fascinates him by fear, 
and to whom he confides his enterprises in order 
to hear the worst that can be said of them. 

The sayings of the chilling friend, probably, as 
he observed, ran thus : 

"We seem to have gone on very well for 
thousands of years without this rolling thing. 
Your father carried burdens on his back. The 
king is content to be carried on men's shoulders. 
The high -priest is not too proud to do the same. 
Indeed, I question whether it is not irreligious to 
attempt to shift from men's shoulders their nat- 
ural burdens. 

" Then, as to its succeeding, — for my part, I 



COLD-WATER POURERS. 427 

see no chance of that. How can it go up hill? 
How is one to stop it, going down ? How often 
you have failed before in ocher fanciful things of 
the same nature ! Besides, you are losing your 
time ; and the yams about your hut are only 
half- planted. You will be a beggar; and it is 
my duty, as a friend, to tell you so plainly. 
There was Nang- Chung: what became of him? 
We had found fire for ages, in a proper way, 
taking a proper time about it, by rubbing two 
sticks together. He must needs strike out fire 
at once, with iron and flint ; and did he die in 
his bed ? Our sacred lords saw the impiety of 
that proceeding, and very justly impaled the man 
who imitated the heavenly powers. And, even if 
you could succeed with this new and absurd roll- 
ing thin?, the State would be ruined. What 
would become of those who now carry burdens 
on their backs ? Put aside the vain fancies of a 
childish mind, and finish the planting of your 
yams." 

No one who had not heard my ingenious 
friend throw himself into the part of first objector, 
can well imagine how much there is to be said 
against the invention of forks. The proposed 
invention was impious, troublesome, unnecessary, 
and ludicrous. Besides, it was impossible, by 
reason of its difficulty ; and, if it were possible, 
it would be most dangerous. It was putting a 
ready weapon into every angry man's hands, 
when the juice of the grape is mounting into 



42S IDEALS OF LIFE. 

men's heads-; and it would mount into the heads 
even of the wisest. Who would answer for the 
deaths that would ensue from these dangerous 
weapons being always close at hand ? There 
could be no blessing on a meal that was to be 
eaten with forks. They had a famine last year, 
when two million Celestials died in anguish. 
What would happen the year after forks should 
come into use? Not that they could be used; 
for it would take a lifetime to learn how to 
use them. Then, what was to become of the 
four great Tang -rang ceremonials, which all de- 
pend upon the meat being taken, bit by bit, in 
due succession, between the thumb and each of 
the several lingers ? How was the Celestial mon- 
arch to show his world - astonishing favor to a 
wisely - controlling minister, when that royal per- 
sonage could not take between his thumb and 
his little finger a boiled bird's - nest, and forever 
irradiate with joy the statesman, by throwing it 
into his mouth, held open reverently? The thing 
could not be done ; and he who should endeavor 
to invent such a machine as a fork, was an idiot, 
a hater of men, a parricide, cousin of a dead dog 
and a despiser of all ceremonials. Finally, what 
would his aunt, widow of the great Ling-Pe, say ? 
a wise lady, who had known all the sound 
usages of old, and who had seven rice - fields 
and three - and - twenty slaves to bequeath. Thus 
the invention of forks was stopped in China. 

My humorous friend was wont to say that 



COLD-WATER POURERS. 429 

thus, too, several fork inventors in various coun- 
tries had been quelled, until the wicked idea en- 
tered into a man who had no aunt, and the forks 
were invented; but he, the inventor, was justly 
burnt alive. 

It is really very serious to observe how, even 
in modern times, the arts of discouragement pre- 
vail. There are men, whose sole pretense to 
wisdom consists in administering discouragement. 
They are never at a loss. They are equally ready 
to prophesy, with wonderful ingenuity, all possible 
varieties of misfortune to any enterprise that is 
proposed; and, when the thing is produced, and 
has met with some success, to find a flaw in it. 
I once saw a work of art produced in the pres- 
ence of an eminent cold-water pourer. He did 
not deny that it was beautiful, but he instantly 
fastened upon a small crack in it, that nobody 
had observed ; and upon that crack he would 
dilate, whenever the work was discussed in his 
presence. Indeed, he did not see the work, but 
only the crack in it. That flaw, that little flaw, 
was all in all to him. 

The cold - water pourers are not all of one 
frame of mind. Some are led to indulge in this 
recreation from genuine timidity. They really do 
fear that all new attempts will fail. Others are 
simply envious and ill - natured. Then, again, 
there is a sense of power and wisdom in prophe- 
sying evil. Moreover, it is the safest thing to 
prophesy, for hardly anything at first sue- 



430 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

ceeds exactly in the way it was intended to suc- 
ceed. 

Again, there is the lack of imagination which 
gives rise to the utterance of so much discour- 
agement. For any ordinary man, it must have 
been a great mental strain to grasp the ideas of 
the first projectors of steam and gas, electric 
telegraphs, and pain deadening chloroform. The 
inventor is always, in the eyes of his fellow-men, 
somewhat of a madman ; and often they do their 
best to make him so. 

Again, there is the want of sympathy ; and 
that is, perhaps, the ruling cause in most men's 
minds who give themselves up to discourage. 
They are not tender enough, or sympathetic 
enough, to appreciate all the pain they are giv- 
ing, when, in a dull, plodding way, they lay out 
argument after argument to show that the pro- 
ject which the poor inventor has set his heart 
upon, and upon which, perhaps, he has staked his 
fortune, will not succeed. 

But what inventors suffer is but a small part 
of what mankind in general endure from thought- 
less and unkind discouragement. Those high - 
souled men belong to the suffering class, and 
must suffer ; but it is in daily life that the wear 
and tear of discouragement tell so much. Pro- 
pose, not a great invention, but a small party of 
pleasure, to an apt discourager (and there is gen- 
erally one in most households), and see what he 
will make of it. It soon becomes sickled over 



DETRACTION. 431 

with doubt and despondency ; and, at last, the 
only hope of the proposer is, that his proposal, 
when realized, will not be an ignominious failure. 
All hope of pleasure, at least for him, the pro- 
poser, has long been out of the question. — Sir 
Arthur Helps. 



G*2a©£*3v®- 



W MPERFECT man— imperfect world- 
^ Are they not equal factors ? 
Then why should any lip be curled, 
Why should there be detractors ? 

But softer, words like these suit not 
The Priests of Imperfection : 

Be there a blemish or a spot, 
Their mission is detection. 

The Poet's strain so grand and true, 
To make his fellows better, 

What is that heavenly music to — 
Displacement of a letter? 

And in a Painting, to the race 
A holy benefaction, 



432 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

A fly - speck on a darkened face 
Is pleasure to Detraction. 

No matter, in this world of ours, 
How much there be of beauty- 

A faded leaf among the flowers ? 
Announcement is a duty. 



This spirit does not so much deny the excel- 
lence you present to its acknowledgement as seek 
to diminish or disparage it. It deals not perhaps 
in calumnious falsehoods, but in perpetual abate- 
ments and curtailments. It inclines to depreciate 
what it cannot condemn. It judges by defects 
rather than by excellencies, and has a sharper 
eye for faults than for merits. If you speak of 
the brightness of the sun, the detractor never 
omitteth to tell you of its spots. If you show 
him a diamond, he alloweth it may be one, he 
will not say it is not, but possibly it may be 
nothing but paste, at all events there is a flaw 
in it. He spieth out cracks and blemishes in all 
things that seem whole and fair, and hath ever a 
microscope at hand to show them to you if you 
will but look through it. He never thinks of 
putting it to the use of disclosing the soul of 
goodness in things imperfect. His vocation is to 
detect imperfections in things good ; and as every- 
thing brightest and fairest in the world of human 
nature and human action is flecked with some 
spot or flaw, so nothing can abide his sharp 
scrutiny. 



DETRACTION. 433 

Now there is nothing in the world that is 
fitted to affect a just and candid mind with 
greater aversion than such a detracting spirit. 

The habit of depreciation is not indeed always 
the sure proof of a base nature. Sometimes it 
betokens nothing worse than a mere unfortunate 
narrow-mindedness, which finds but few things to 
praise because it is simply unable to understand 
and admire things outside its own sphere, and so 
is quite honestly disposed to disallow the possi- 
ble excellence that may be in them. 

Sometimes it may proceed from that form of 
intense self- love which is full of satisfaction with 
itself, its own doings and possessions and with 
everything in any way related to itself. It thinks 
highly and speaks warmly of its own wife, chil- 
dren, friends, horses and doors, — which is nothing; 
to be condemned if only it were not given to 
spying out things to dispraise in other peoples' 
wives, children, friends, horses and dogs. Its 
own geese are not only always swans, but other 
peoples' swans are nothing but geese. 

Sometimes it springs from the vanity which 
plumes itself on the acuteness it displays. It does 
not mean to be ill - natured ; but it cannot resist 
the temptation to pick holes in its neighbor's 
coat merely to show its smartness. 

But sometimes, alas, nothing better can be 
said of it than that it has its root in a spirit of 
jealousy, envy, or even wanton malice. " The 
Devil's heartiest laugh is at a detracting witti- 
cism. Hence the phrase, ' Devilish good.' " 



434 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

So wrote Washington Allston in one of his 
aphorisms pencilled on the old pine commode I 
have mentioned. And doubtless all malignant 
detraction is of the Devil, and the wittier it may 
be the more its goodness is a " Devilish " good- 
ness. 

But I have only to hope that in this slight 
attempt to analyze the detracting spirit I may not 
have fallen into anything of it myself. It is not 
necessarily uncharitable, any more than it is un- 
true, to say that the detracting spirit is a wrong 
and unlovely spirit. But it is easier to speak of 
what is good and noble in spirit than it is to 
speak exactly as one should of what is the oppo- 
site to it — avoiding uncandid harshness on the 
one hand, and the mawkish indiscrimination of 
sentimental charitableness on the other ! The 
reverse of wrong is not always right. The gold- 
en mean of just judging doubtless lies some- 
where between Mr. Malevolus Bitter and Mrs. 
Semper Sweet. If one could only always hit it! 
One thing, however, is certain. It is better to 
cultivate the disposition to look out for what is 
good in others rather than what is ill, to praise 
rather than disparage. It is better to be too wide 
likers than to find nothing to like. There is a 
great deal of excellence in the world which 
cynics never see. — C. S. Henry. 



TEMPERA NGE. 435 



fcprmup*. 



Pn-iHy enjoyment depends upon health, and health depends apfln 
temperance. — Thales. 



& 



)J|pPLY the bit and curb 
= 3 ^~' To thine untamed desires, 
Or Judgment will thy life disturb 
And light consuming fires. 

Let Temperance control 

Desires which God has given, 

And keep them servants of the soul, 
Then all are gates to heaven. 

Let Riot rule them now, 

And wise restraint repel, 
No wreath is woven for thy brow, 

For all are gates to hell. 

Reward and Punishment 

Are ever on our way, 
For comfort and for warning meant, 

God's preachers night and day, 



Temperance first, as it tends to procure that 
coolness and clearness of head which is so neces- 
sary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, 
and a guard maintained against the unremitting 
attraction of ancient habits and the force of per- 
petual temptation. — Dr. Franklin. 



436 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Temperance gives Nature her full play, and 
enables her to exert herself in all her force and 
vigor. — Addison. 

Indeed, the abuse of the bounties of Nature, 
much more surely than any partial privation of 
them, tends to intercept that precious boon of a 
second and dearer life in our progeny, which was 
bestowed in the first great command to man 
from the All - Gracious Giver of all, — whose 
name be blessed, whether He gives or takes 
away ! His hand, in every page of His book, has 
written the lesson of moderation. Our physical 
well - being, our moral worth, our social happi- 
ness, our political tranquillity, all depend on that 
control of all our appetites and passions which 
the ancients designated by the cardinal virtue of 
temperance. — Burke. 

Temperance, that virtue without pride, and 
fortune without envy, that gives indolence (in the 
old and right sense of freedom from pain) of 
body with an equality of mind ; the best guard- 
ian of youth and support of old age ; the precept 
of reason as well as religion, and physician of 
the soul as well as the body ; the tutelar god- 
dess of health and universal medicine ,of life. — 
Sir William Temple. 

Temperance is a tree which has contentment 
for its root, and peace for its fruit. — From the 
Arabian. 

Who is this natural beauty, who advances 
with so much grace? The rose is on her cheeks; 



TEMPERANCE. 437 

her breath is pure as morning dew; joy, tem- 
pered with modesty, animates her countenance. 
It is Health, the daughter of Exercise and Tem- 
perance. — From the Hindu. 

While the intemperate man inflicts evil upon 
his friends, he brings far more evil upon himself. 
Not only to ruin his family, but also to bring 
ruin on his own body and soul, is the greatest 
wrong that any man can commit. — Socrates. 

Far from me be the gift of Bacchus, — per- 
nicious, inflaming wine, that weakens both body 
and mind. — Homer. 

Is there anything which reflects a greater 
lustre upon a man's person than a severe tem- 
perance, and a restraint of himself from vicious 
pleasures ? — South. 

The temperate man is dear to the Deity, be- 
cause he is assimilated to Him. . . . The 
first and best of victories is for a man to con- 
quer himself; to be conquered by himself is of 
all things the most shameful and vile. — Plato. 

If it is a small sacrifice to discontinue the 
use of wine, do it for the sake of others ; if it is 
a great sacrifice, do it for your own sake. — 
Samuel J. May. 

It is not inspiration which we owe to narcot- 
ics ; it is merely counterfeit excitement and fury. 
The great, calm presence of the Creator comes 
not forth to the sorceries of opium or wine. 
The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple 
soul, in a clean and chaste body, — Emerson. 



438 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

The body oppressed by excesses bears down 
the mind, and depresses to the earth any por- 
tion of the Divine Spirit we had been endowed 
with. — Horace. 

It is said of Diogenes that, meeting a young 
man who was going to a feast, he took him up 
in the street and carried him to his own friends, 
as one who was running into imminent danger, 
had he not prevented him. What would that 
philosopher have said had he been present at 
the gluttony of a modern meal ? Would not he 
have thought the master of a family mad, and 
have begged his servants to tie down his hands, 
had he seen him devour a fowl, fish, and flesh ; 
swallow oil and vinegar, wine and spices ; throw 
down salads of twenty different herbs, sauces of 
a hundred ingredients, confections and fruits of 
numberless sweets and flavors? What unnatural 
motions and counter -ferments must such a med- 
ley of intemperance produce in the body ! For 
my part, when I behold a fashionable table set 
out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see 
gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with 
other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade 
among the dishes. 

Nature delights in the most plain and simple 
diet. Every animal, but man, keeps to one dish. 
Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, 
and flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything 
that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit or 
excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a 
mushroom can escape him. — Addison. 



TEMPERANCE. 439 

It is little the sign of a wise or good man to 
suffer temperance to be transgressed in order to 
purchase the reputation of a generous entertainer. 
— Atterbury. 

Drunkenness is a flattering devil, a sweet poi- 
son, a pleasant sin, which whosoever hath, hath 
not himself; which whosoever doth commit doth 
not commit sin, but he himself is wholly sin. — 
St. Augustine. 

Drunkenness calls off the watchmen from their 
towers ; and then all evils that proceed from a 
loose heart, an untied tongue, and a dissolute 
spirit, we put upon its account. — Jeremy Tay- 
lor. 

When this vice has taken fast hold of a man, 
farewell industry, farewell emulation, farewell at- 
tention to things worthy of attention, farewell 
love of virtuous society, farewell decency of man- 
ners, and farewell, too, even an attention to per- 
son ; everything is sunk by this predominant and 
brutal passion. In how many instances do we 
see men who have begun life with the brightest 
prospects before them, and who have closed it 
without one ray of comfort or consolation ! 
Young men with good fortunes, good talents, 
good tempers, good hearts, and sound constitu- 
tions, only being drawn into the vortex of the 
drunkard, have become by degrees the most 
loathsome and despicable of mankind. In the 
house of the drunkard there is no happiness 
for any one. All is uncertainty and anxiety. He 



440 IDU.-.LS OF LIFE. 

is not the same man for any one day at a time. 
No one knows his outgoings or his incomings. 
When he will rise or when he will lie down to 
rest is wholly a matter of chance. That which 
he swallows for what he calls pleasure brings 
pain as surely as the night brings the morning. 
Poverty and misery are in the train. To avoid 
those results we are called upon to make no 
sacrifices. Abstinence requires no aid to accom- 
plish it. Our own will is all that is requisite : 
and if we have not the will to avoid contempt, 
disgrace, and misery, we deserve neither relief 
nor compassion. — Cobeett. 

No man oppresses thee, O free and independ- 
ent franchiser! but does not this stupid porter - 
pot oppress thee ? No son of Adam can bid 
thee come or go ; but this absurd pot of heavy 
wet, this can and does ! Thou art the thrall, not 
of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal ap- 
petites, and this soured dish of liquor. And thou 
pratest of thy " liberty," thou entire blockhead ! — 
Carlyle. 



HOXESTY* 441 



Ifoutslt^ 



WRT HEN the genuine article 



V 

' N ^ x ^ r Dwindles down to a particle, 

And the name of it, 

Oh the shame of it! 

Is the stock in the trade of it, 

Honesty — is afraid of it. 

When " society " cultivates 
Till to shadow it culminates, 

And but charity 

Sees the rarity, — 
What becomes of the modesty 
Of reality — Honesty? 

When one seeks to be beautiful 
And omits to be dutiful, 

Is not vanity 

Then profanity? 
Does not folly abound in it? 
Is there Honesty found in it? 



According to a well - known writer, ' a grocer 
is a man who buys and sells sugar, and plums, 
and spices for gain.' 

Happy is the English grocer who can lay his 
hand upon his commercial heart, and, making 
answer to the text, say, ' I am the man ! ' For 



442 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

of the men who set over their shop - doors the 
designation of ' Grocer,' how many are there who 
buy and sell sugar, and sugar only ; who turn 
the penny upon spices in their purity: yend 
naught but the true ware — the undoctered clove! 

Great is the villainy of the Chinese ; but it is 
written in certain books of the prying chemist 
that the roguery of the Briton — bent, it may be, 
upon the means of social respectability — doth 
outblush the pale face of the Mongolian trick- 
sters. 

The Chinaman glazes his tea with Prussian 
blue ; he paints his Congo, and adds a perfume 
to his Twankey ; but he, the pig - tailed heathen, 
does not recognize in a Britisher a man and a 
brother, and, in his limited sympathies, fails to 
acknowledge in any British maiden, of any fabu- 
lous age soever, a woman and a sister. The 
China teaman is a benighted barbarian ; the Brit- 
ish grocer is an effulgent Christian. The China- 
man's religion is the gust of revenge ; the Brit- 
on's creed is the creed of common love. 

It is possible, if the effort be made, to drop 
a tear over the ignorance of the Chinaman who 
dusts his faded tea-leaves with chromate of lead ; 
but shall not one's eyes flash fire at the enlight- 
ened British tea-dealer who to the withered leaf 
imparts the mortal glow of plumbago? Never- 
theless, there are grocers in the commercial form 
of men, who treat the stomachs of their custom- 
ers as their customers treat their stoves — 



HOXESTY. 443 

namely, they bestow upon their internals the 
questionable polish of blacklead, innocently swal- 
lowed in cups of liquid worse and blacker than 
the Lacedemonian black broth. How many an 
innocent tea-loving spinster, proud of the jetty 
loveliness of her fireplace, would vent a spasm 
of horror did she know that the polish of her 
own stove and the bloom of her own black tea, 
fragrant and smoking at her lips, were of one 
and the same blacklead — of lead that, in due suf- 
ficiency, is akin to coffin lead ! And the English 
grocer, intent upon deceit, outvies the chemists, 
the teamen of the Flowery Kingdom. There is 
not a toss-up between the two ; and if there be, 
though China beats by a tail, England fails not 
to win by a head. 

Of coffee (a word still found in some of the 
dictionaries) it is hardly necessary to speak ; the 
acres of chicory, wherein the pious grocer as 
well as his customers may " walk forth to muse 
at eventide,' have a language and a lesson of 
their own. It may be added, however, that per- 
haps there is not a more touching, a more in- 
structive, and withal a more pathetic picture 
than either man or woman complacently em- 
ployed in drinking what the drinker, in more 
than primitive innocence, believes to be coffee — 
grocer's coffee, at one shilling per pound. — 
Douglas Jerrold. 

Show me a people whose trade is dishonest, 
and I will show you a people whose religion is a 
sham. — Froude. 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 

When men cease to be faithful to their God. 
bo expects to find them so to each other 
will be much disappointed. The primitive sincer- 
ity will accompany the primitive piety in her 
flight from the earth, and then interest will suc- 
ceed conscience in the regulation of human con- 
duct, till one man cannot trust another further 
than he holds him by that tie : hence, by the 
way, it is, that although many are infidels them- 
selves, yet few choose to have their families and 
dependents such: as judging, — and rightly judg- 
ing. — that true Christians are the only persons 
to be depended on for the exact discharge of 
their social duties. — Bishop Horxe. 

Wisdom without honest}* is mere craft and 
cozenage; and therefore the reputation of honesty 
must f.rst be gotten, which cannot be but by 
living well: a a-ood life is a main argument — 
Ben Joxson. 

Put it out of the power of truth to give you 
an ill character : and if anybody reports you not 
to be an honest man. let your practice give him 
the lie ; and to make all sure, you should resolve 
to live no longer than you can live honestly : for 
it is better to be nothing than a knave. — Amto- 

HIUS, 

The arts of deceit and cunning do continually 
grow weaker and less effectual and serviceable 
to them that use them ; whereas integrity- gains 
strength by use; and the more and longer any 
man practices it the greater service it does him, 




The river of beneficence to man.' 



DEVOTION. 445 

by confirming his reputation, and encouraging 
those with whom he hath to do to repose the 
greatest trust and confidence in him, which is an 
unspeakable advantage in the business and affairs 
of life. — Tillotson. 



y*&g»o- 



1 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 



rF^EVOTION is the secret of success, 

"^^ And heaven's perennial fount of happiness. 

Devotion marshals all the powers of mind, 
With every longing of the heart combined ; 

And from the free united exercise 

All blessed hopes and expectations rise. 

The river of beneficence to man, 
Devotion wafts tKe worker to the van ; 

And goes forever flowing through the earth, 
To bring all grand, enduring things to birth. 

Devotion cheers the toiler through the day, 
And keeps the sense of weariness away. 



446 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Devotion makes the garden of the Lord, 
The deed its own exceeding great reward. 

Devotion bears the lover to his love : 
Devotion lifts the saint to God above. 

And so Devotion brings success, — the best 
And dearest presence to the human breast. 



It is the diligent hand and head alone that 
maketh rich in self- culture, growth in wisdom, 
and in business. Even when men are born to 
wealth and high social position, any solid reputa- 
tion which they may individually achieve is only 
attained by energetic . application ; for, though an 
inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inher- 
itance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The 
wealthy man may pay others for doing his work 
for him, but it is impossible for him to get his 
thinking done for him by another, or to purchase 
any kind of self- culture. Indeed, the doctrine 
that excellence in any pursuit is to be achieved 
by laborious application only, holds as true in 
the case of the man of wealth as in that of 
Drew and GifTord, whose only school was a cob- 
bler's stall, or Hugh Miller, whose only college 
was a Cromarty stone -quarry. 

The knowledge and experience which pro- 
duce wisdom can only become a man's individual 
possession and property by his own free action ; 
and it is as futile to expect these without labor- 
ious, painstaking effort, as it is to hope to 



DEVOTION. 447 

gather a harvest where the seed has not been 
sown. It is related of Grosteste, an old Bishop 
of Lincoln, possessing great power in his day, 
that he was once asked by his stupid and 'idle 
brother to make a great man of him. " Brother," 
replied the Bishop, "if your plough is broken, 
I'll pay for the mending of it ; or, if your ox 
should die, I'll buy you another ; but I cannot 
make a great man of you ; a ploughman I found 
you, and a ploughman I must leave you." 

Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not 
necessary for man's highest culture, else had not 
the world been so largely indebted in all times 
to those who have sprung from the humbler 
ranks. An easy and luxurious existence does not 
train men to effort or encounter with difficulty ; 
nor does it awaken that consciousness of power 
which is so necessary for energetic and effective 
action in life. Indeed, so far from poverty being 
a misfortune, it may, by vigorous self-help, be 
converted even into a blessing ; rousing a man 
to that struggle with the world in which, though 
some may purchase ease by degradation, the 
right-minded and true-hearted will find strength, 
confidence, and triumph. Bacon says, " Men 
seem to neither understand their riches nor their 
strength ; of the former they believe greater 
things than they should ; of the latter much less. 
Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to 
drink out of his own cistern and eat his own 
sweet bread, and to learn and labor truly to get 



448 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

his living, and carefully to expend the good 
things committed to his trust." — Smiles. 

To our thinking it is a secret easily guessed 
— a secret which the life of every great and good 
man reveals; neither less nor more. than "doing 
one's duty." But though the secret is so simple, 
it is by no means easily applied. We may know 
it thoroughly, and then not profit by it, like the 
magicians who professed to have discovered the 
secret of immortal life, and died in the flush of 
manhood ! Is there anything harder than doing 
one's duty ? What a demand it makes upon all 
our faculties ! How we must be content to strive, 
and bear, and insist ; to submit to the sternest 
self-discipline, to practise the most rigorous self- 
reliance ! and after all, we shall fail — fail egreg- 
iously — unless we enter on the task in humble 
imitation of the example of Christ, and with a 
strong resolve to walk in His footsteps. 

But what do we mean by " success ? " The 
phrase, "success in life," has a very different 
signification for different minds. To one it rep- 
resents a large account at his banker's ; to an- 
other, a comfortable estate, enclosed in its own 
" ring fence ; " to another, a high place in so- 
ciety ; to yet another, a title or an office; and 
to a fifth, the trumpet-voice of fame. It will be 
modified also by the measure of our aspirations 
and our sense of our opportunities. So that 
success in life to some will be embodied in the 
poet's modest ambition — 



DEVOTION. 449 

" I often wish that I had clear 

For life, three hundred pounds a year;" 

to others, it will not fall short of a capital of a 
quarter of a million. We suppose that by nine 
men out of ten it is identified, in some way or 
other, and in a large or limited sense, with 
money -getting. Now, we do not profess the as- 
sumption of a tone of extravagant morality, and 
we shall not pour upon money -getting a flood of 
indiscriminate censure. On this point we have 
already hazarded our opinion. It is right enough 
and honorable enough for a man to covet an in- 
dependent position, such as only money can 
secure. Money as an end is a serious evil ; as a 
means to an end it is a splendid good. Of 
course Diogenes despised money ; but then you 
and I, reader, despise Diogenes. We do not 
think it a good thing to live in a tub, or a great 
thing to wear a cloak with more holes in it than 
substance. God forbid that we should work for 
money alone, for money as the great aim and 
object of life ; but God forbid that we should 
stoop to the pride of humility which rails at it as 
dross, and pretends that true happiness lies in 
the lap of poverty. It seems to us very com- 
mendable in a young man to resolve upon earn- 
ing a competence, if he can make up his mind 
as to what is a competence, and to keep his 
desires under stringent control. But for a man 
who gives up his nights and days, his heart and 
soul, to the acquisition of a larger fortune than 



450 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

his neighbors, we feel the most supreme con- 
tempt. The man whose aspirations point to 
money, and his thoughts to money, and his feel- 
ings to money, and his affections to money, may 
God forgive, for he will have need of forgive- 
ness ! — Adams. 

If you wish success in life, make perseverance 
your bosom friend, experience your wise counsel- 
lor, caution your elder brother, and hope your 
guardian genius. — Addison. 

The talent of success is nothing more than 
doing what you can do well, and doing well 
whatever you do, without a thought of fame. — 
Longfellow. 

All things religiously taken in hand are pros- 
perously ended ; because whether men in the end 
have that which religion did allow to- desire, or 
that which it teaches them contentedly to suffer, 
they are in neither event unfortunate. — Hooker. 



S*v-S***§« 



I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. — St. John xiv. 6. 

However, I am sure that there is a common spirit that plays within 
us, and that is the Spirit of God. Whoever feels not the warm gale and 
gentle ventilation of this Spirit, I dare not say he lives; for, truly, with- 
out this to me there is no heat under the tropic, nor any light, though 
I dwelt in the body of the sun. — Sir Thomas Browne. 

Afflictions are the methods of a merciful Providence to force upon 
us the only means of setting matters right. — L'Estrange. 

The sensible presence of God, and shining of His clear-discovered 
face. — Archbishop Leighton. 

The doctrine in which all religions agree, is that new light is added 
to the mind in proportion as it uses that which it has. — Emerson. 

Here eyes do regard you 

In Eternity's stillness; 

Here is all fulness, 
Ye brave, to reward you; 

Work, and despair not. 

— Goethe. 



(452) 



m 



i 



He that is of the Truth heareth My voice. — St. John xvii. 37. 

J|) PERFECT Character, 
Q> ^ The Truth, the Life, the Way, 
Through Thee descends the Comforter 
To turn our night to day. 

Thou hast endured it all, 

The cross of life below ; 
And from the wormwood and the gall 

What peace and .sweetness flow ! 

Inspire us day by day 

With Thy heroic mind, 
To leave along our homeward way 

Our little selves behind ; 

And through the Comforter 

Whom Thou dost send us here, 

Approach Thee, Perfect Character, 
Where Truth is always clear. 



Truth lies in character. Christ did not simply 
speak truth : He was truth ; truth through and 

(453) 



454 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

through ; for truth is a thing, not of words, but 
of Life and Being. None but a Spirit can be 
true. 

For example. The friends of Job spoke 
words of truth. Scarcely a maxim which they 
uttered could be impugned: cold, hard, theologi- 
cal verities ; but verities out of place — in that 
place cruel and untrue. Job spoke many words 
not strictly accurate — hasty, impetuous, blunder- 
ing, wrong ; but the whirlwind came, and before 
the Voice of God the veracious falsehoods were 
swept into endless nothingness — the true man, 
wrong, perplexed, in verbal error, stood firm. 
He was true, though his sentences were not; 
turned to the truth as the sunflower to the sun, 
— as the darkened plant, imprisoned in the vault, 
turns towards the light, — struggling to solve the 
fearful enigma of his existence. 

Job was a servant of the truth, being true 
in character. . . . 

Christianity joins two things inseparably to- 
gether — acting truly, and perceiving truly. Every 
day the eternal nature of that principle becomes 
more certain. If any man will do His will, he 
shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. 

It is a perilous thing to separate feeling from 
action ; to have learnt to feel rightly without 
acting rightly. It is a danger to which, in a 
refined and polished age, we are peculiarly ex- 
posed. The romance, the poem, and the ser- 
mon, teach us how to feel. Our feelings are 



TRUTH. 455 

delicately correct. But the clanger is this: feel- 
ing is given to lead to action ; if feeling be suf- 
fered to awake without passing into duty, the 
character becomes untrue. When the emergency 
for real action comes, the feeling is, as usual, 
produced ; but, accustomed as it is to rise in fic- 
titious circumstances without action, neither will 
it lead on to action in the real ones. " We pity 
wretchedness, and shun the wretched " We utter 
sentiments, just, honorable, refined, lofty, but 
somehow, when a truth presents itself in the 
shape of duty, we are unable to perform it. 
And so such characters become by degrees 
like the artificial pleasure-grounds of bad taste, 
in which the waterfall does not fall, and the 
grotto offers only the refreshment of an imagi- 
nary shade, and the green hill does not strike 
the skies, and the tree does not grow. Their 
lives are a sugared crust of sweetness trembling 
over black depths of hollowness ; more truly 
still, " whited sepulchres," — fair without to look 
upon, " within full of all uncleaness." — F. W. 
Robertson. 

Truth indeed came into the world with her 
Divine Master, and was a perfect shape most 
glorious to look on; but when He ascended, and 
His apostles after Him were laid asleep, then 
straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, 
as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with 
his conspirators, how they dealt with the good 
Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely 



456 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them 
to the four winds. From that time ever since, 
the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, 
imitating the careful search that Isis made for the 
mangled body of Osiris, went up and down, 
gathering up limb by limb still as they could find 
them. We have not yet found them all, Lords 
and Commons, nor ever shall do till her Master's 
second coming: He shall bring together every 
joint and member, and shall mould them into an 
immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. — 
Milton. 

Nowadays, men will investigate all things, in- 
ward and outward. Truth ! canst thou escape 
from the furious hunt? They go forth with nets 
and poles to catch thee; but, with spirit -like 
tread, thou glidest away through their midst. — 
Schiller. 

To love truth for truth's sake is the principal 
part of human perfection, and the seed-plot of 
all other virtues. — Locke. 

When the majestic form of Truth approaches 
it is easier for a disingenuous mind to start aside 
till she is past, and then reappearing, say, "It 
was not Truth," than to meet her, and bow, and 
obey. — John Foster. 

This same Truth is a naked and open day- 
light, that does not show the masks and mum- 
meries and triumphs of the world, half so daintily 
as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to 
the price of a pearl that showeth best by day, 




" What though the venerable oak be broken, 
And ruthless floods sweep down the mountain-side' 

Ruin is not, perforce, of wratli the token, 

Nor doth stern vengeance on the torrent ride." 



(p. 4G0) 



TRUTH. 457 

but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or 
carbuncle that showeth best in varied lights. A 
mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth 
any man doubt that if there were taken out of 
men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false 
valuations, imaginations as one would, and the 
like, but it would leave the minds of a number 
of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy 
and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves ? 
— Lord Bacon. 

Do not be over -fond of anything, or consider 
that for your interest which makes you break 
your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to 
any practice which will not bear the light, or 
look the world in the face. — Antoninus. 

Speak every man truth with his neighbor ; for 
we are members of one another. — Ephesians 
iv. 25. 

To speak the truth and perform good offices 

are two things that resemble God 

Every man ought to speak and act with such 
perfect integrity that no one could have reason 
to doubt his simple affirmation. — Pythagoras. 

Only they who carry sincerity to the highest 
point, in whom there remains not a single hair's 
breadth of hypocrisy, can see the hidden springs 
ot things. — Confucius. 

The sacrifice of a thousand horses has been 

put in the balance with one true word, and the 

true word weighed down the thousand sacrifices. 

No virtue surpasses that of veracity. There are 

30 



458 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

two roads which conduct to perfect virtue : to be 
true, and to do no evil to any creature. — From 
the Hindu. 

Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no 
case whatever, but, as in the exercise of all the 
virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is a sort 
of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with 
measure, that he may speak it the longer. — 
Burke. 

Whosoever is afraid of submitting any ques- 
tion, civil or religious, to the test of free discus- 
sion, is more in love with his own opinion than 
with the truth. — Bishop Watson. 

Seek truth by thought, not by searching for 
it in mouldly books. Look up to the sky to see 
the moon, instead of seeking for it in the pond. 
— From the Persian. . 

Truth and reason constitute that intellectual 
gold that defies destruction. — Dr. Johnson. 

Do not let us lie at all. Do not think of 
one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, 
and another as unintended. Cast them all aside. 
They may be light and accidental, but they are 
ugly soot from the smoke of the pit, and it is 
better that our hearts should be swept clean of 
them. — Ruskin. 

Truth is always consistent with itself, and 
needs nothing to help it out ; it is always near at 
hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to 
drop out before we are aware ; whereas a lie is 
troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the 



TRUTH. 459 

rack, and one trick needs a great many more to 
make it good. It is like building upon a false 
foundation, which constantly stands in need of 
props to shore it up, and proves at last more 
chargeable than to have raised a substantial 
building at first upon a true and solid founda- 
tion ; for sincerity is firm and substantial, and^ 
there is nothing hollow and unsound in it, and, 
because it is plain and open, fears no discovery ; 
of which the crafty man is always in danger ; and 
when he thinks he walks in the dark, all his pre- 
tences are so transparent, that he who runs may 
read them ; he is the last man that finds himself 
to be found out; and whilst he takes it for 
granted that he makes fools of others, he renders 
himself ridiculous. — Tillotson. 

A straight line is the shortest in morals as in 
mathematics. — Maria Edgeworth. 

It is in the determination to obey the truth, 
and to follow wherever she may lead, that the 
genuine love of truth consists. — Whately. 

I love truth because I love to have an apple 
thought to be an apple, and a hand a hand ; and 
the whole beauty and hopefulness of God's crea- 
tion a truth instead of a lie. — Leigh Hunt. 

The law of Christianity is eminently and 
transcendently called the word of truth. — South. 



460 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



to! ©m yi^mm 



t fi what if bitter things sometimes betide thee ! 
Qy * > " A loving, outstretched Hand is always near, 
Which doth in judgment and compassion guide 

thee, 
And point the way where all is bright and 

clear. 

Lo ! when from cloud to cloud the lightning flashes, 
What time the storm is plunging through the air 

And in commingling peals the thunder crashes, 
Needeth the heart be told that God is there ? 

What though the venerable oak be broken, 

And ruthless floods sweep down the mountain 
side? 

Ruin is not, perforce,' of wrath the token, 

Nor doth stern vengeance on the torrent ride. 

Let crimson Battle tread on many a bosom, 
Let Sorrow clasp the tendrils of the heart, 

If Truth thereby put forth a fairer blossom, 
And Life a fragrance more divine impart. 

Revenge and punishment have here no places ; 

Severity and tenderness combine, 
And lo! descending with celestial graces, 

Proclaim that healing only is divine. 



BUT ONE PHYSICIAN. 461 



In heaven and earth there is but one Physician, 
And though ofttimes He addeth unto pain, 

Like discords in the strains of a great musician, 
His acts are but the harbinger of gain. 



Some used to say, in old times, — and they 
may say so again, — This world, so full of pain 
and death, is a very ill - made world. We will 
not believe it was made by the good God. It 
must have been made by some evil being, or at 
least by some stupid and clumsy being, — the 
Demiurgus, they called him, or world - maker, — 
some inferior god whom the good God would 
conqs^r and depose, and so do away with pain, 
and misery, and death. A pardonable mistake ; 
but, as we are bound to believe, a mistake, nev- 
ertheless. — Charles Kikgsley. 

Could we get a view of our world from a 
high enough point, might we not possibly dis- 
cover that there is nothing absolutely evil ? By 
aid of the microscope our physical vision finds 
beauty in mouldiest clods, wonders in dullest 
matter. Were our moral vision similarly armed, 
might not that look globular and symmetrical 
which now seems flat and deformed, that useful 
which now seems obstructive, that attractive which 
is now repulsive, that beneficent which now looks 
malignant? In the bounded view we commonly 
get we often find that what we thought a calam- 
ity proves a benefaction. What we call evil is 
always a consequence of a breach of law. To 



462 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

tell your son that his toothache is caused by the 
breaking- of a physiological law by him, or his 
parents, or his grand - parents, will not, to be 
sure, check the pain ; nor do I think the tooth - 
ache a spiritual lever. But man can learn, — 
and it is the most fruitful of his lessons, — that 
law is absolute, and in its aim beneficent ; that 
aim being, along with growth, stability, conserva- 
tion, improvement. Whichever way we turn we 
are met by law, and we soon perceive that law 
is uniform and irresistible, and that we prosper 
in proportion as we conform ourselves to its be- 
hests. Could we always submit us to law, physi- 
cally, morally, intellectually, spiritually, we should 
be completely prosperous. Law is an ever- 
active ideal, above us, around us, correcting- us, 
guiding us, cultivating us, inviting us, exalting us. 
The nations and the individuals that have dis- 
covered and that obey the most and deepest 
laws are the most advanced and the wisest and 
best. . . . 

The creative Mightiness and sufficiency mani- 
fest themselves in Law. Law is perfection. It is 
no sign of "deficiency of power" in the creative 
mind that we and all about us are created imper- 
fect. Imperfection is demanded for what consti- 
tutes the life of life, progression, the joy of 
change, the delight of improvement, the exhilara- 
tion of ascent. Law, being perfect, is ever beck- 
oning us toward perfection. Human life could 
not be lived without hope ; and hope implies a 



BUT OSE PHYSICIAN. 463 

something brighter and better and happier in the 
future, and implies, therefore, a present imperfec- 
tion and a growth out of it. Imperfection is the 
ground whence spring up stimulants to motion, 
to activity, to aspiration. Without imperfection 
there were no expectation, no curiosity, no color, 
no ecstacy, on earth, neither smiles nor tears, 
neither comedy nor tragedy. — Calvert. 

As surely as God is good, so surely there is 
no such thing as necessary evil. For by the 
religious mind, sickness, and pain, and death are 
not to be counted evils. Moral evils are of your 
own making ; and undoubtedly the greater part 
of them may be prevented. — Southey. 

Of divers things evil, all beingr not evitable 
{avoidable), we take one; which one, saving only 
in case of so great urgency, were not otherwise 
to be taken. — Hooker. 

War, for example, may be chosen rather than 
dishonorable peace ; and, with all its misery, 
prove one of the means of a higher civilization, 
— one of innumerable illustrations of good out 
of evil. 

Take away honor and imagination and poetry 
from war, and it becomes carnage. Doubtless. 
And take away public spirit and invisible prin- 
ciples from resistance to a tax, and Hampden 
becomes a noisy demagogue. . . . Carnage 
is terrible. The conversion of producers into de- 
stroyers is a calamity. Death, and insults to 
woman, worse than death, and human features 



464 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

obliterated beneath the hoof of the war-horse, 
and reeking hospitals, and ruined commerce, and 
violated homes, and broken hearts, — they are all 
awful. But there is something worse than death. 
Cowardice is worse. And the decay of enthusi- 
asm and manliness is worse. And it is worse 
than death, — aye, worse than a hundred thousand 
deaths, — when a people has gravitated down into 
the creed that the " wealth of . nations " consists 
not in generous hearts, — 

" Fire in each breast, and freedom in each brow," — 

in national virtues, and primitive simplicity, 
and heroic endurance, and preference of duty 
to life ; not in men, but in silk, and cotton, 
and something that they call " capital." Peace is 
blessed. Peace, arising out of charity. But 
peace, springing out of the calculations of selfish- 
ness, is not blessed. If the price to be paid for 
peace is this, that wealth accumulate and men 
decay, better far that every street in every town 
of our once noble country should run blood. — 
F. W. Robertson. 



RICHES. 465 



1,4*. 



POSSESSIONS of the heart and mind, 

With or without an outward store, 
And treasures never left behind, 
Because they always go before. 



And He spake a parable unto them, saying, 
The ground of a certain rich man brought forth 
plentifully : and he thought within himself, say- 
ing, What shall I do, because I have no room 
where to bestow my fruits ? And he said, This 
will I do : I will pull down my barns and build 
greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruits 
and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, 
thou hast much goods laid up for many years ; 
take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But 
God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul 
shall be required of thee : then whose shall those 
things be which thou hast provided ? So is he 
that layeth up treasures for himself, and is not 
rich toward God. — St. Luke xii. 16-21. 

Now the Scripture ever considers the heart as 
that which constitutes a man truly rich or poor, 
hat has no love of God, no large spiritual 
affections, no share in the unsearchable riches of 
Christ, no sympathies with his brethren, is, in 
fact, " wretched and miserable, and poor and 



466 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

blind, and naked," and shall one day find out 
that he is so, however now he may say, " I am 
rich and increased with goods, and have need of 
nothing : " he is poor towards God, he has noth- 
ing with God; he has laid up in store, no good 
foundation against the time to come. On the 
other hand, he only is truly rich, who is rich 
toward God — who is rich in God, who has made 
the eternal and the unchangeable the object of 
his desires and his efforts. He in God possesses 
all things, though in this world he were a beg- 
gar, and for him to die will not be to quit, but 
to go to, his riches. — Trench. 

True happiness consists in perfect health, a 
moderate fortune, and a life free from effeminacy 
and ignorance. — Thales. 

A covetous man does not possess his wealth : 
his wealth possesses him. — Bias. 

What a rich man uses and gives, constitutes 
his real wealth. That which thou hoardest, whose 
is it? Other covetous men will sport with it. — 
From the Hindu. 

If a man make money at the expense of his 
virtue, he dishonors his soul. He sells honor 
for gold. All the gold on earth is of no value 
compared with virtue. — Plato. 

If the rich have diseases of the soul, they are 
worse off than the poor afflicted with bodily in- 
firmities. Bodily infirmities are not of our own 
seeking, and death will deliver us from them; 
but diseases of the soul we bring upon ourselves, 
and when we die they go with us. — Gregory. 



RICHES. 4G7 

Riches are to society what food is to the 
body. Should any one of the members of the 
body absorb the nutriment intended for the 
whole, the body would perish utterly ; for it is 
held together only by the requisite distribution of 
nourishment to the divers parts. In the same 
manner, the general harmony of society is main- 
tained only by the interchange of services be- 
tween the rich and the poor. — St. Chrysostom. 

In the sight of God no man is poor, but him 
who is wanting in goodness ; and no man is rich 
but him who abounds in virtues. — Lactantius. 

Large rivers, great trees, wholesome plants, 
and wealthy persons are not created for them- 
selves, but to be of service to others. — From the 
Hindu. 

A man has three friends in his life, — wealth, 
family, and his good actions. When the hour of 
death approaches, and he calls on friends to de- 
liver him, wealth and family avail not ; but his 
good actions respond, " Even before thou hast 
called upon us, we have preceded thee, and have 
smoothed the way for thee. — Jewish Talmud. 

Glory not in wealth, if thou have it ; but in 
God, who giveth all things, and who above all 
desireth to give thee Himself. — Thomas a 
K em pis. 

Wealth bears heavier on talent than poverty 
does. Under gold mountains and thrones how 
many a spiritual giant may be crushed down and 
buried. — Richter. 



468 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



JtppmmHan* 



(I^ELIGHT in excellence of other folk, 

^^ Is of Humanity the living yolk : 

It proves the heart is not by self consumed, 

Nor by that tyrant of the world entombed ; 

And bears us into that bright atmosphere 

Where all things good and true and fair appear, 

In fellowship with His elected host, 

Who sends the Comforter the Holy Ghost. 

I do not know anything more loveable and 
charming than the disposition which shows itself 
in a quick and full sympathy with whatever is 
good and noble in others, and a hearty, gen- 
erous joy in recognizing and praising it. I have 
a particular delight in seeing this spirit among 
cotemporaneous men of letters — the greater be- 
cause in the present age, when literature has 
come to be so much of a profession (not to say 
trade), the temptations to rivalries and jealousies, 
or to a depreciating disposition, are perhaps more 
numerous and strong. I therefore thank God 
with especial gladness for any example of this 
generous admiration. — C. S. Henry. 

Appreciation is the bond of peace among 
neighbors : the manifestation of love in families ; 
and the shining mark of " the communion of the 



EVIL-EYED. 469 

saints." Washington Allston speaks of it, in a 
very beautiful way, as proof of devotion to our 
own chosen work. "If an artist," he says, "love his 
Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence 
wherever he meets it, as well in the work of an- 
other as in his own. This is the test of a true 
love." And this is true of every calling. Appre- 
ciation shows that a man is doing his own work 
in the right spirit, and is in the free current 
of Humanity, not a useless wreck on the 
shore. . 



■G2SS@gSS^>- 



.S^H, is there any blessed use 
^^ That one should see but evil, 
And every joyful sight refuse 
To prove there is a devil ? 

Behold the shimmer of the stars, 
Which ride the heavens in glory, 

Enthroned upon their radiant cars, 
And think of Satan's story; 

Who from his post as Lucifer, 
That wondrous heaven -adorner, 



470 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Became a vile interpreter, 
A fallen earthly scorner: 

And answer, Is there any use 
That one should see but evil, 

And every joyful sight refuse, 
To prove there is a devil ? 



Greatness is divine; 

^ t " An influence that comes from God alone 
Which in a house of clay begins to shine ; 
Beyond, as yet unknown. 

In that narrow place, 
It kindles more and more, and brighter grows ; 
And, though unrecognized, imparts a grace 

Whose source no mortal knows. 

Months and years go by : 
The Giant dwells within those walls of dust, 
And waits to gather for the victory 

The fire of Truth and Trust: 

Waits, — as giants can; 
And when the hour for shining forth arrives, 



GREATS ESS. 471 



He bursts into the firmament of man 
To cheer ten thousand lives. 



The power of awakening, enlightening, ele- 
vating our fellow - creatures may, with peculiar 
fitness, be called divine, for there is no agency of 
God so beneficent and sublime as that which He 
exerts on rational natures, and by which He 
assimilates them to Himself. This sway over 
other souls is the surest test of greatness. We 
admire, indeed, the energy which subdues the 
material creation, or develops the physical re- 
sources of a state. But it is a nobler might 
which calls forth the intellectual and moral re- 
sources of a people, which communicates new 
impulses to society, throws into circulation new 
and stirring thoughts, gives the mind a new con- 
sciousness of its faculties, and rouses and fortifies 
the will to an unconquerable purpose of well 
doing. This spiritual power is worth all other. 
To improve man's outward condition is a second- 
ary agency, and is chiefly important as it gives 
the means of inward growth. The most glorious 
minister of God on earth is he who speaks with 
a life - giving energy to other minds, breathing 
into them the love of truth and virtue, strength- 
ening them to suffer in a good cause, and lifting 
them above the senses and the world. 

We know not a more exhilarating thought 
than that this power is given to men; that we 
can not only change the face of . the outward 



472 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

world, and by virtuous discipline improve our- 
selves, but that we may become springs of life 
and light to our fellow-beings. We are thus ad- 
mitted to a fellowship with Jesus Christ, whose 
highest end was that He might act with a new 
and celestial energy on the human mind. We 
rejoice to think that He did not come to monop- 
olize this divine sway, to enjoy a solitary grand- 
eur, but to receive others, even all who should 
obey His religion, into the partnership of this 
honor and happiness. Every Christian, in pro- 
portion to his progress, acquires a measure of 
this divine agency. In the humblest conditions, a 
power goes forth from a devout and disinterested 
spirit, calling forth silently moral and religious 
sentiment, perhaps in a child, or some other 
friend, and teaching, without the aid of words, the 
loveliness and peace of sincere and single-hearted 
virtue. In the more enlightened classes, individ- 
uals now and then rise up, who, through a sin- 
gular force and elevation of soul, obtain a sway 
over men's minds to which no limit can be pre- 
scribed. They speak with a voice which is heard 
by distant nations, and which goes down to fu- 
ture ages. Their names are repeated with ven- 
eration by millions ; and millions read in their 
lives and writings a quickening testimony to the 
greatness of the mind, to its moral strength, to 
the reality of disinterested virtue. These are the 
true sovereigns of the earth. They share in the 
royalty of Jesus Christ. They have a greatness 



GREATNESS. 473 

which will be more and more felt. The time is 
coming, its signs are visible, when this long -mis- 
taken attribute of greatness will be seen to be- 
long eminently, if not exclusively, to those who, 
by their characters, deeds, sufferings, writings, 
leave imperishable and ennobling traces of them- 
selves on the human mind. Among these legiti- 
mate sovereigns of the world will be ranked the 
philosopher, who penetrates the secrets of the 
universe and of the soul ; who opens new fields 
to the intellect, who gives a new consciousness of 
its own powers, rights, and divine original ; who 
spreads enlarged and liberal habits of thought ; 
and who helps men to understand that an ever- 
growing knowledge is the patrimony destined for 
them by the " Father of their spirits." Among 
them will be ranked the statesman who, escaping 
a vulgar policy, rises to the discovery of the true 
interest of a state ; who seeks without fear or 
favor the common good ; who understands that a 
nation's mind is more valuable than its soil ; who 
inspirits a people's enterprise, without making 
them the slaves of wealth; who is mainly anxious 
to originate or give stability to institutions by 
which society may be carried forward ; who con- 
fides with a sublime constancy in justice and vir- 
tue, as the only foundation of a wise policy and 
of public prosperity ; and, above all, who has so 
drunk into the spirit of Christ and of God as 
never to forget that his particular country is a 
member of the great human family, bound to all 

31 



474 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

nations by a common nature, by a common inter- 
est, and by indissoluable laws of equity and 
chanty. Among these will be ranked, perhaps, 
on the highest throne, the moral and religious 
reformer, who truly merits that name; who rises 
above his times ; who is moved by a holy im- 
pulse to assail vicious establishments, sustained 
by fierce passions and inveterate prejudices ; who 
rescues great truths from the corruptions of ages; 
who, joining calm and deep thought to profound 
feeling, secures to religion at once enlightened 
and earnest conviction ; who unfolds to men 
higher forms of virtue than they have yet at- 
tained or conceived ; who gives brightness and 
more thrilling views of the perfection for which 
they were framed, and inspires a victorious faith 
in the perpetual progress of our nature. — Chan- 

NING. 



..fi&gfO.. 



©jjigmrfH^ 



jwLL, whatsoever cometh from the heart, 
^ Which born of life begetteth life, 
While nothing which proceeds alone from art, 
Is ever with its flavor rife; 

The lightning flashes of a thoughtful mind, 
Which place the subject in a light 



ORIGINALITY. 475 

Whose clearness, with simplicity combined, 
Draws out at once responsive sight; 

Wealth of the inner -man, passed through the 
mint, 

Which makes it current with the race, 
While that which only has its shining in't, 

Goes tumbling to deserved disgrace; — 

These, these are thine, Originality, 

Thy worth to God's unnumbered host, 

Who know the signet of Reality, 
Sign - manual of the Holy Ghost. 



It has been justly observed that "flashes of 
mind" in a writer are struck out by the rapid 
pen, and that one flash of a man's own mind is 
more profitable to himself, and will procure him 
a more favorable reception from the public, than 
any amount of reprint of second - hand confisca- 
tions. Of course, the flash may be elicited by 
contact with another mind. Thorwarldsen's Mer- 
cury was sugested by the sight of a lad sitting 
in a graceful attitude of repose. Tennyson's " In 
Memoriam " might, never have been written but 
for Milton's " Lycidas." Hazlitt records that when 
Edmund Kean was praised for his action as 
Richard III., in his final unavailing struggle with 
victorious Richmond, when, after his sword has 
been wrested from him, he stood with his hand 
stretched out, "as if his will could not be dis- 
armed, and the very phantom of his despair had 



476 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

a withering power," he acknowledged that he 
had conceived the idea by seeing the last effort 
of Painter in his fight with Oliver. This, how- 
ever, is not imitation, not the impudent plagiar- 
ism of the servile copyist. In adopting and act- 
ing upon a suggestion, or in catching up an 
illustration, an original mind is often seen at its 
best. No doubt, as has been remarked, the 
most original writer, like the bee, will derive his 
capital stock of ideas, his funded store, from a 
variety of sources ; but as the bee, though it 
plunders all the flowers of the field of their 
"nectared sweets," is careful that its honey shall 
not tell of any special blossom, so will the man 
of independent mind ensure that his work shall 
not speak too directly of any particular master. 
He will collect his material from every nook and 
corner of the wide domain of literature, but it 
will all be filtered through the alembic of his 
own brain, and its elements recombined before 
being presented to the public in enduring form. 
A writer who would seize and retain the ear of 
the public must have something of his own to 
say, while at times repeating and transmitting 
through a new medium the thoughts of others. 
He may adapt and borrow, but what he adapts 
and borrows he must invest with a certain de- 
gree of novelty. His style must be peculiar and 
proper to himself. To assume another man's 
style, to write Johnsonese, Carlylese, or Ruskin- 
ese, is as foolish and unprofitable as to strut 



ORIGINALITY. 477 

about in another man's clothes. Ideas become 
the property of everybody. The thoughts of 
Plato and Cicero are part of the heritage of well- 
cultivated minds ; but style is, or should be, a 
man's self. 

Let the writer, then, who pants for notoriety 
or covets true fame, follow Pat's advice to a 
bad orator, — come out from behind his nose and 
speak in his own natural voice. The heaven of 
popular approbation is to be taken only by 
storm. Emerson has startled the world by his 
Emersonisms, and not by echoes of Carlyle, as 
many imagine, for he is like Carlyle only in be- 
ing original. 

Edgar A. Poe, with all his personal faults, 
eternized his name on the scroll of American 
authors simply by being Edgar A. Poe ; but who 
reads the legion parodies of ' The Raven ? ' 
Cooper has won a great name as a novelist, 
though his writings are stuck as full of faults as 
the firmament with stars, while thousands of ro 
mances of equal ability have gone to the * tomb 
of the Capulets,' because they have tried to be^ 
unlike themselves. Who can forget how, when 
Sir Walter Scott first kindled the torch of his 
genius at the fires of feudal poesy, working out 
new scenes of interest from the warblings of 
scalds and troubadours and minnesingers, his 
thrilling cadences were imitated by a whole forest 
of mocking-birds, who made the heavens vocal 
with the glories of mosstrooper and marauder, 



478 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

baron bold and gay ladye, hound in leash and 
hawk in hand, bastion huge and gray chapele, 
henchmen 'and servitors, slashed sleeves and 
Spanish boots, 'guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, 
drums, and thunder?' No sooner had the Wiz- 
ard of the North gracefully resigned his wand to 
a mightier Prospero, whose star of popularity had 
shot with a burst to the south, then, presto ! down 
went Rhoderick Dhu and Wat of Baccleuch be- 
fore Hassan and Selim ; the paeans to Rosabelle 
were exchanged for the praises of Medora, the 
plaid and the bonnet for the white turban and 
the baggy trousers ; and over the whole realm of 
song arose the Oriental dynasty under the prime 
viziership of Byron. Ten thousand puny rhyme- 
sters called the moon ' Phingair,' daggers 'atta^- 
hans,' drummers ' Tambourgis,' and women 'Hou- 
ris ; ' became lovers of gin and haters of pork ; 
discarded their neckcloths and put on sackcloth ; 
strove perseveringly in turn-down collars to look 
Conrad - like and misanthropic ; swore by the 
beard of the Prophet, and raved in Spenserian 
• stanzas about their 'burning brows' or mourned 
over their ' dark imaginings ; ' dreamed by night 
of gazelle-eyed beauties, by day of Giaours, 
jereedmen and janizaries ; and, whether baker's, 
butcher's, or barber's apprentices, became the 
oracles of impassioned wretchedness, and — when 
they could raise money enough — adventured on 
hacks hired by the hour imitations of Mazeppa 
at a hand-gallop along the highway. Where are 




"The major notes and minor 

Are waiting for their wings- 
Pray thou the great Diviner 
To touch the secret springs.' 



MUSIC. 479 

they all now ? Alas ! the whole swarm of ro- 
mances in six cantos with historical notes, alike 
with the ten thousand echoes of Byron, have 
long since gone to the land of forgetfulness ; or, 
they live in an accommodated sense of the term, 
owe it to the tender mercies of the pastry-cook 
and the trunk-maker. — Anonymous. 



Itrat* 



|7f7HERE is a strain eternal 
^> In every faithful heart, 
A melody supernal, 
Obedient to art. 

There is the music glorious 
In all the brave and strong, 

Of those who march victorious, 
Triumphant over wrong. 

God's harmony is written 

All through, in shining bars, 

The soul His love has smitten, 
As heaven is writ with stars. 

The major notes and minor 
Are waiting for their wings, — 



480 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Pray thou the great Diviner 
To touch the secret springs ; 

And chant that music glorious, 
That everlasting song, 

Of those who march victorious. 
Triumphant over wrong. 



The meaning of song goes deep. Who is 
there that, in logical words, can express the 
effect music has on us ? A kind of inarticulate, 
unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge 
of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze 
into that ! — Carlyle. 

Music is the art of the prophets, the only 
art that can calm the agitations of the soul: it is 
one of the most magnificent and delightful pres- 
ents God has given us. — Luther. 

There is music in heaven, because in music 
there is no self-will. Music goes on certain 
rules and laws. Man did not make these laws 
of music ; he has only found them out ; and if 
he be self-willed and break them, there is an 
end of his music instantly: all he brings out is 
discord and ugly sounds. The greatest musician 
in the world is as much bound by those laws 
is the learner in the school ; and the greatest 
musician is one who, instead of fancying that, 
because he is clever, he may throw aside the 
laws of music, knows the laws of music best, 
and observes them most reverently. And there- 



MUSIC. 481 

fore it was that the old Greeks, the wisest of all 
the heathens, made a point of teaching their 
children music; because, they said, it taught 
them not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to 
see the beauty, the usefulness of rule, the 
divineness of laws. And therefore music is fit 
for heaven ; therefore music is a pattern and 
type of heaven, and of the everlasting life of 
God, which perfect spirits live in heaven ; a 
life of melody and order in themselves ; a life 
of harmony with each other and with God. 

If thou fulfillest the law which God has given 
thee, the law of love and liberty, then thou 
makest music before God, and thy life is a 
hymn of praise to God. 

If thou art in love and charity with thy 
neighbors, thou art making sweeter harmony in 
the ears of our Lord Jesus Christ than psaltry, 
dulcimer, and all kinds of music. 

If thou art living a righteous and a useful 
life, doing thy duty orderly and cheerfully where 
God has put thee, then thou art making sweeter 
melody in the ears of the Lord Jesus Christ 
than if thou hast the throat of a nightingale ; 
for then thou in thy humble place art humbly 
copying the everlasting harmony and melody 
which is in heaven ; the everlasting harmony and 
melody by which God made the worlds and all 
that therein is, and behold it was very good, in 
the day when the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy over 



482 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

the new - created earth, which God made to be 
a pattern of His own perfection. — Charles 
Kingsley. 



Sottftram 



M FOOLISH star once went astray, 
^~" Through some self - calculation : 
She vanished from the Milky Way, 

That troubled constellation, 
Through which long lines of mist you trace, 

You any night may view it, 
And see the gleam of many a face 

Come softly struggling through it. 
But God in mercy led her back, 

And suffered no exclusion ; 
Yet could not take away, alack ! 

Her tearful self - confusion : 
It lingers in ' the Milky Way, 

Shared by her kin forever, 
Which oft they seek to smile away 

In brave but vain endeavor. 



Now it is difficult to tell men what being 
confounded means ; difficult and almost needless ; 
for there are those who know what it means 



CONFUSION. 483 

without being told ; and those who do not know 
what it means without being told, are not likely 
to know by my telling, or any man's telling. 
No, not if an angel from heaven came and told 
chem what being confounded meant would they 
understand him, at least till they were confounded 
themselves ; and then they would know by bitter 
experience, — perhaps when it was too late. 

And who are they? What sort of people are 
they? 

First, silly persons, whom Solomon calls fools, 
— though they often think themselves refined 
and clever enough, — luxurious and "fashionable" 
people, who do not care to learn, who think 
nothing worth learning save how to enjoy them- 
selves ; who call it " bad form " to be earnest, 
and turn off all serious questions with a jest. 
These are they of whom Wisdom says, — " How 
long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity, and 
the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools 
hate knowledge? I also will laugh at your cal- 
amity, and mock when your fear cometh." 

Next, mean and truly vulgar persons ; who 
are shameless ; who do not care if they are 
caught out in a lie or in a trick. These are 
they of whom it is written that outside of God's 
kingdom, in th^ outer darkness wherein are 
weeping and gnashing of teeth, are dogs, ind 
whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. 

And next, and worst of all, self- conceited 
people. These are they of whom Solomon says, 



484 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

" Seest thou a man who is wise in his own con- 
ceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him." 
They are the people who will not see when they 
are going wrong ; who will not hear reason, nor 
take advice, no, nor even take scorn and con- 
tempt ; who will not see that they are making 
fools of themselves, but, while all the world is 
laughing at them, walk on serenely self-satisfied, 
certain that they, and they only, know what the 
world is made of, and how to manage the world. 
These are they of whom it is written — " He that 
being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall 
suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." 
Then they will learn, and with a vengeance, what 
being confounded means by being confounded 
themselves, and finding themselves utterly wrong, 
where they thought themselves utterly right. Yet 
no. I do not think that even that would cure 
some people. There are those, I verily believe, 
who would not confess that they were in the 
wrong even in the bottomless pit, but, like Satan 
and his fallen angels in Milton's poem, would 
have excellent arguments to prove that they were 
injured and ill - used, deceived and betrayed, and 
lay the blame of their misery on God, on man. 
on anything but their own infallible selves. 

Who, then, are the people who know what 
being confused means ; who are afraid, and ter- 
ribly afraid, of being brought to shame and con- 
fusion of face ? 

I should say, all human beings in proportion 



CONFUSION. 485 

as they are truly human beings, are not brutal ; 
in proportion, that is, in proportion as the Spirit 
of God is working in them, giving them the ten- 
der heart, the quick feelings, the earnestness, the 
modesty, the conscientiousness, the reverence for 
the good opinion of their fellow-men, which is the 
beginning of eternal life. Do you not see it in 
the young ? Modesty, bashfulness, shame - faced- 
ness — as the good old English word was — that is 
the very beginning of all goodness in boys and 
girls. It is the very material out of which all 
other goodness is made ; and those who laugh at, 
or torment, young people for being modest and 
bashful, are doing the devil's work, and putting 
themselves under the curse which God, by the 
mouth of Solomon, the wise, pronounced against 
the scorners who love scorning, and the fools who 
hate knowledge. 

This is the rule with dumb animals likewise. 
The more intelligent, the more high-bred they 
are, the more they are capable of feeling shame ; 
and the more they are liable to be confounded, 
to lose their heads, and become frantic with 
doubt and fear. Who that has watched dogs 
does not know that the cleverer they are, the 
more they are capable of being actually ashamed 
of themselves, as human beings are, or ought to 
be? Who that has trained horses does not know 
that the stupid horse is never vicious, never 
takes fright? The failing which high-bred horses 
have of becoming utterly unmanageable, not so 



486 • IDEALS OF LIFE. 

much from bodily fear as from being confounded, 
not knowing what people want them to do — that 
is the very sign, the very effect, of their superior 
organization : and more shame to those who ill- 
use such horses. If God, my friends, dealt with 
us as cruelly and as clumsily as too many men 
deal with their horses, He would not be long in 
driving us mad with terror, and shame, and con- 
fusion. But He remembers our frame; He 
knoweth whereof we are made, and remembereth 
that we are but dust: else the spirit would fail 
before Him, and the souls which He hath made. 
And to Him we can cry, even when we know 
that we have made fools of ourselves — Father 
who made me, Christ who died for me, Holy 
Spirit who teachest me, have patience with my 
stupidity and my ignorance. Lord, in Thee have 
1 trusted ; let me never be confounded. — Charles 

KlNGSLEY. 



§mmnr$ttrm 



^EMEMBER that happiest day 
~*^ When I from myself turned away, 
And sought my devotion to prove 
In acts of adorable love? 



CONVERSION. 487 

Escaped from a bottomless hell, 
How- could I forget it, the spell 
Which lifted me up from my fall, 
And sang in my bosom the call 

To enter the long whitened field 
That harvests for heaven doth yield, 
And bind up the bright golden sheaves 
Which God to a coronet weaves? 

fairest of all to my heart, 

My love for Thee will not depart, 
Till yonder in bowing me down 

1 cast at Thy footstool my crown. 



Who that compares his heart with the picture 
of the renewed heart, as the pencil of the Holy 
Spirit has traced its clear, firm outline in Scrip- 
ture, will be inclined to cavil at conversion — to 
dispute as to whether it is in most cases sudden 
or gradual, initiative or complete, when he feels 
that in all cases it is needed? The Holy Spirit 
works upon what it finds, — the history of conver- 
sion varies with that of each individual soul ; 
thus, there are persons who need no repentance 
in the sense of a turning of the outward life, but 
in a deeper sense, even that of the renewing 
from on high, all need it. Conversion is the con- 
sent of the soul to God. It is the acceptance of 
Christ, and with Him, of pardon, deliverance, 
freedom ; it is the withdrawal of the soul from 
its own objects to fix upon those which the doc- 



488 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

trine of Christ presents it, and which the natural 
heart does not, cannot receive. Conversion be- 
longs to the rationale of spiritual life ; it is a 
fact, at which, even if it were not revealed, were 
not insisted upon, in Scripture, the heart of Man 
would arrive through its own unanswerable logic. 
— Miss Greenwell. 

In what way, or by what manner of working, 
God changes a soul from evil to good, how He 
impregnates the barren rock, — the priceless gems 
and gold, — is to the human mind an impenetra- 
ble mystery in all cases alike. — Coleridge. 

As to the value of conversions, God alone 
can judge. God alone can know how wide are 
the steps which the soul has to take before it 
can approach to a community with Him, to the 
dwelling of the perfect, or to the intercourse and 
friendship of higher natures. — Goethe. 

One glance of God, a touch of His love, will 
free and enlarge the heart, so that it can deny 
all, and part with all, and make an entire re- 
nouncing of all to follow Him. . . . 

It is in His power to do it for thee. He can 
stretch and expand thy straightened heart, can 
hoist and spread the sails within thee, and then 
carry thee on swiftly ; filling them, not with the 
vain air of men's applause, but with the sweet 
breathings and soft gales of His own Spirit, 
which carry it straight to the desired haven. — 
Archbishop Leighton. 



IMAGINATION. 489 



Imaging 



JTHE things unseen alone are everlasting, 
^ Our wondrous lives before : 
Imagination finds them, in forecasting, 
God's angels evermore. 

The promises of life are in their keeping, 

All things divinely fair; 
And what, since exhaltation follows weeping, 

If gloom is sometimes there? 

The monsters of foreboding Terror 

Abide their proper time ; 
And in the breaking of the chains of Error 

How Truth becomes sublime ! 

O grasp the marvels of Imagination, 
And build them into form : 

They all will smile at last, — their fascination 
Like sunshine after storm. 



The faculty of imagination is the great spring 
of human activity, and the principal source of 
human improvement. As it delights \x\ present- 
ing to the mind scenes and characters more per- 
fect than those which we are acquainted with, it 
prevents us from ever being completely satisfied 
with our present condition or with our past at- 



490 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

tainments, anu engages us continually in the pur- 
suit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal 
excellence. Hence the ardor of the selfish to 
better their fortunes, and to add to their per- 
sonal accomplishments ; and hence the zeal of the 
patriot and philosopher to advance the virtue and 
the happiness of the human race. Destroy this 
faculty, and the condition of man will become as 
stationary as that of the brutes. — Dugald Stewart. 

The truth of it is, I look upon a sound im- 
agination as the greatest blessing in life, next to 
a clear judgment, and a good conscience. In the 
meantime, since there are very few whose minds 
are not more or less subject to some dreadful 
thoughts and apprehensions, we ought to arm 
ourselves against them by the dictates of reason 
and religion, "to pull the old woman out of our 
hearts " (as Persius expresses it in the motto of 
my paper,) and extinguish those impertinent no- 
tions which we imbibed at a time when we were not 
able to judge of their absurdity. Or if we be- 
lieve, as many wise and good men have done, 
that there are such phantoms and apparitions as 
those I have been speaking of, let us endeavor 
to establish to ourselves an interest in Him who 
holds the reins of the whole creation in His 
hands, and moderates them after such a manner 
that it is impossible for one being to break loose 
upon another without His knowledge and permis- 
sion. — Addison. 

The imagination may be said in its widest 



IMAGINATION. 491 

sense, to be synonymous with invention, denoting 
that faculty of the mind by which it either "bodies 
forth the form of things unknown," or produces 
original thoughts or new combinations of ideas 
from materials stored up in the memory. The 
fancy may be considered that peculiar habit of 
association which presents to our choice all the 
different materials that are subservient to the 
efforts of the imagination. — Brande. 

It is the divine attribute of the imagination 
that it is irrepressible, unconfinable ; that when 
the real world is shut out, it can create a world 
for itself, and with a necromantic power can con- 
jure up glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant 
visions to make solitude populous, and irradiate 
the gloom of a dungeon. — Washington Irving. 

Generalization is necessary to the advance- 
ment of knowledge ; but particularity is indispen- 
sable to the creations of the imagination. In 
proportion as men know more and think more, 
they look less at individuals and more at classes. 
They therefore make better theories and worse 
poems. They give us vague phrases instead of 
images, and personified qualities instead of men. 
They may be better able to analyze human na- 
ture than their predecessors. But analysis is not 
the business of the poet. His office is to por- 
tray, not to dissect. He may believe in a moral 
sense, like Shaftesbury ; he may refer all human 
actions to self- interest, like Helvetius ; or he may 
never think about the matter at all. His creed 



492 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

on such subjects will no more influence his 
poetry, properly so called, than the notions which 
a painter may have conceived respecting the 
lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the blood, 
will affect the tears of his Niobe, or the blushes 
of his Aurora. If Shakespeare had written a 
book on the motives of human action, it is by no 
means certain that it would have been a good 
one. It is extremely improbable that it would 
have contained half so much able reasoning on 
the subject as is to be found in the Fable of the 
Bees. But could Mandeville have created an 
Ia^o ? Well as he knew how to resolve charac- 

o 

ters into their elements, would he have been 
able to combine those elements in such a manner 
as to make up a man, a real, living, individual 
man ? — Lord Macaulay. 

Imagination, although a faculty of quite sub- 
ordinate rank to intellect, is of infinite value for 
enlarging 1 the field for the action of the intellect. 
It is a conducting and facilitating medium for the 
intellect to expand itself through, where it may 
feel itself in a genial, vital element, instead of a 
vacuum. — John Foster. 

Nor let it be supposed that terrors of imagi- 
nation belong to childhood alone. The reprobate 
heart, which has discarded all love of God, can- 
not so easily rid itself of the fear of the devil ; 
and even when it succeeds in that also, it will 
then create a hell for itself. We have heard of 
unbelievers who thought it probable that they 



IMA GIN A TION. 49 3 

should be awake in their graves : and this was 
the opinion for which they had exchanged a 
Christian's hope of immortality. — Southey. 

When the imagination frames a comparison, 
if it does not strike on the first presentation, a 
sense of the truth of the likeness, from the mo- 
ment it is perceived, grows — and continues to 
grow — upon the mind ; the resemblance depend- 
ing less upon the outline of form and feature 
than upon expression and effect, — less upon 
casual and outstanding, than upon inherent, inter- 
nal properties ; moreover, the images invariably 
modify each other. The law under- which the 
processes of fancy is carried on is as capricious 
as the accidents of things, and the effects are 
surprising, playful, ludicrous, amusing, tender, or 
pathetic, as the objects happen to be oppositely 
produced, or fortunately combined. Fancy is 
given to quicken and beguile the temporal part 
of our nature ; imagination to incite and to sup- 
port the eternal. Yet it is not the less true that 
fancy, as she is an active, is also, under her own 
laws, and in her own spirit, a creative faculty. 
In what manner fancy ambitiously aims at a rival- 
ship with imagination, and imagination stoops to 
work with the materials of fancy might be illus- 
trated from the compositions of all eloquent 
writers, whether in prose or verse. . . . 

The grand storehouse of enthusiastic and med- 
itative imagination, of poetical as contra - distin- 
guished from human and dramatic imagination, 



4)4 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

are the prophetical and lyrical parts of the Holy 
Scriptures, and the works of Milton, to which I 
cannot forbear to add those of Spenser. — Words- 
worth. 



>Ip fcai jSlattB T{nt$< 



The same yesterday, to-day, and forever. — Hebrews xiii. 8. 

INHERE is a path — the soul may go and come 
&4 it — 

By which to reach the Face* on Cannon's summit, 
Full fifteen hundred feet by line and plummet ; 
Whose mystery has never yet been uttered, 
Save when the storm with bursting heart has 

muttered, 
Or hermit eagles round their eyrie fluttered. 

I mean the wondrous Face of Ancient Silence, 
Older than Egypt's Sphinx, or pyramidic Science, 
Whose features spell both strength and self- re- 
liance ; 
By Nature figured from her blocks of granite, 
Where four times twenty feet forever span it, 
And all the mighty winds of heaven fan it. 

*A celebrated natural curiosity on Mount Cannon, Franconia, N H. 



THE GREAT STONE FACE. 495 

I mean the Man whose throne is on the mountain, 
Whose mighty heart is one unfailing fountain, 
All history too brief his thoughts to count in ; 
Who in his solitude an age of ages 
Has witnessed every war which Nature wages. — 
Oh wiser he than all our human sages ! 

I lingered yesterday, in silence viewed him, 
Until my soul with very life endued him, 
And like an over eager maiden wooed him. 
To - day will other wondering souls endeavor 
To guess the thought from which he ceases never, 
To - morrow too, to - morrow and forever. 

And some will think, as I did, of Another, 
A far sublimer Face, our Elder Brother, 
Eternity His Father, Time His Mother ; 
Of whom the Profile Rock is but a semblance 
Flung out by Nature with celestial temp'rance, 
To keep Him in perpetual remembrance. 

Franconia, N. H., Aug., 1878. 

Hugh Miller, the inspired Apostle of Science, 
found the rudiments of Christ in the Rocks. . 
. . Jesus Christ in every lamina of the Earth's 
crust ; and, as with faith in his heart and the 
iron in his hand, he toiled among the old red 
sandstone, he saw the fosil Mora of his own 
Scotch hills tipped with tongues of flame, and the 
fauna rigid with the stress of prophecy. It was 
as if the blood of Calvary had stained and in- 
formed with meaning the insensate mass in which 



496 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

he wrought ; or as if he were, with a divine in- 
stinct, hewing away the rock from the door of 
the sepulchre where the ages had laid his Lord. 
With a vision that was too wonderful and too 
glorious for the protracted entertainment of his 
mighty brain, he saw the various forms of life 
climbing through the rugged centuries, and leap- 
ing from creation to creation, until they took res- 
olution in the union of matter and spirit in man. 
But science with a pining heart behind it was 
not satisfied even then. Not until the complex 
creature man was united in a chain complete. 
Then, with the lost link fastened to the Throne, 
the grand riddle of " the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world " swung clear in the 
sight of angels and men. — Dr. Holland. 



■Ga£S®«g9^a)- 



JPalbtra* 



$jT WILL not vex His ears with my complaining, 

^ For unto Him obedience is due ; 

And as a father He forecasts the training, 

To make His children strong and brave and true. 

I will not vex His ears with my repining; 
But I will ask Him what for me is best, 



PATIEXCE. 497 

Till of His will I see the blessed shining 
What time my heart is lifted to its rest. 

Patience ! let Him work on, the great Refiner ! 

How vast the work no eyes but His descry. 
Patience ! of this strange heart, the one Diviner, 

His burning look doth pierce and purify. 

Patience ! and when the day is at the darkest ! 

Patience ! till foes aweary shall despair. 
And thou, who to celestial voices harkest, 

Shall see the watching skies grow clear and fair, 

Until at length old things, forever passing, 

Shall hold the panting heart no more in thrall, 

And heaven and earth renewed, before thee massing 
Their glorious things, shall hence be all in all. 

Patience is the guardian of faith, the pre- 
server of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher 
of humility. Patience governs the flesh, strength- 
ens the spirit, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, 
subdues pride ; she bridles the tongue, refrains 
the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures 
persecutions, consummates martyrdom. Patience 
produces unity in the church, loyalty in the state, 
harmony in families and societies ; she comforts 
the poor and moderates the rich ; she makes us 
humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, un- 
moved by calumny and reproach ; she teaches us 
to forgive those who have injured us, and to be 
the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we 



498 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

have injured ; she delights the faithful, and invites 
the unbelieving ; she adorns the woman, and im- 
proves the man ; is loved in a child, praised in a 
young man, admired in an old man ; she is beau- 
tiful in either sex and every age. — Bishop Horne. 

But what a lovely sight is it to behold a per- 
son burdened with many sorrows, and perhaps 
his flesh upon him has pain and anguish, while 
his soul mourns within him : yet his passions are 
calm, he possesses his spirit in patience, he takes 
kindly all the relief that his friends attempt to 
afford him, nor does he give them any grief or 
uneasiness but what they feel through the force 
of mere sympathy and compassion ! Thus, even 
in the midst of calamities, he knits the hearts of 
his friends faster to himself, and lays greater 
obligations upon their love by so lovely and 
divine a conduct under the weight of his heavy 
sorrows. — Dr. Watts. 

The great remedy which Heaven has put in 
our hands is patience, by which, though we can- 
not lessen the torments of the body, we can in a 
great measure preserve the peace of the mind, 
and shall suffer only the natural and genuine 
force of an evil, without heightening its acrimony, 
or prolonging its effects. — Dr. Johnson. 

If thou intendest to vanquish the greatest, the 
most abominable and wickedest enemy, who is 
able to do thee mischief both in body and soul, 
and against whom thou preparest all sorts of 
weapons, but cannot overcome, then know that 




'The glory of the summer morn. 



REWARD. 499 

there is a sweet and loving physical herb to 
serve thee, named Patientia. — Luther. 

Be patient in the age of pride, when men live 
by short intervals of reason under the dominion 
of humor and passion, when it is in the power 
of everyone to transform thee out of thyself, and 
run thee into the short madness. If you cannot 
imitate Job, yet come not short of Socrates, and 
those patient Pagans who tired the tongues of 
their enemies, while they perceived they spit 
their malice at brazen walls and statues. — Sir 
Thomas Browne. 



]|imrariL 



£^[?HE glory of the summer morn, 
^ From Night's refreshing slumber born, 
Is unto thankful birds reward, — 
Their anthem to the Lord. 

Gleams of the True, the Beautiful, 
The Good, all things of Him so full, — 
Are they not unto man reward 

Which cometh from the Lord? 

The sense of what is well begun, 
Pursued with love, and rightly done, 



500 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Is not a poor and low reward, 
Unworthy of the Lord. 

Think not He bargains with His child, 
To Duty here unreconciled, 
And offers some far - off reward 
To them that own Him Lord. 

I hold the flower enjoys the sun, 
Rewarded ere the day is done : 
So our exceeding great reward 
Is day by day the Lord ; 

And in the blessed time to come, 
When angels bear us safely home, 
Will our unspeakable reward 
Forever be the Lord. 



I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great re- 
ward. — Genesis xv. t. 

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing 
the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, 
enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is 
clear, enduring forever : the judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to 
be desired are they than gold, yea, than much 
fine gold : sweeter also than honey and the 
honey -comb. Moreover by them is Thy servant 
warned : and in keeping of them there is great 
reward. — Psalm xix. 8— ii. 

Love ye your enemies, and do good, and 
lend, hoping for nothing again ; and your reward 



REWARD. 501 

shall be great, and ye shall be the children of 
the Highest : for He is kind unto the unthankful 
and to the evil. — St. Luke vi. 35. 

Justice ought to be pursued for itself, not for 
rewards springing from it. Justice is itself the 
best reward to the soul. — Plato. 

The reward of doing one duty is the power 
to perform another. — Ben Azai. 

If we practice goodness not for the sake of its 
own intrinsic excellence, but for the sake of gain- 
ing some advantage from it, we may be cunning, 
but we are not good. — Cicero. 

The only reward of virtue is virtue. The 
only way to have a friend is to be one. — 
Emerson. 

Beautiful it is to see and understand that no 
worth, known or unknown, can die, even on this 
earth. The work an unknown good man has 
done is like a vein of water flowing hidden un- 
der ground, secretly making the ground green. 
It flows and flows ; it joins itself with other veins 
and veinlets ; and one day it will start forth as a 
visible and perennial well. — Carlyle. 

The penny is very different to the differ- 
ent receivers — though objectively the same, 
subjectively is very different ; it is, in fact, 
to every one exactly what he will make it. 
What the Lord said to Abraham, He says 
unto all, " I am thy exceeding great reward," 
and He has no other reward to impart to any 
save only this : namely, Himself. To see Him as 



502 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

He is, this is the reward which He has for all 
His people, the penny unto all ; but they whom 
these murmuring laborers represent, had been 
laboring for something else besides the knowledge 
and enjoyment of God, with an eye to some 
other reward, to something on account of which 
they could glory in themselves and glory over 
others. It was not merely to have much which 
they desired, but to have more than others, — not 
to grow together with the whole body of Christ, 
but to get before and beyond their brethren — 
and the penny then, because it was common to 
all, did not seem enough, — while in fact it was to 
each what he would make it. For if the vision 
of God constitutes the blessedness of the future 
world, then they whose spiritual eye is most en- 
lightened will drink in most of His glory ; then, 
since only like can know like, all advances which 
are here made in humility, in holiness, in love, 
are a polishing of the mirror that it may reflect 
more distinctly the divine image, a purging of 
the eye that it may see more clearly the divine 
glory, an enlarging of the vessel that it may re- 
ceive more amply of the divine fulness ; and on 
the contrary, all pride, all self- righteousness, all 
sin of every kind, whether it stop short with 
impairing, or end by altogether destroying, the 
capacities for receiving from God, is in its degree 
a staining of the mirror, a darkening of the eye, 
a narrowing of the vessel. — Trench. 



gep-goteg. 



The Life was the Light of men. — St. John i. 4. 

Wisdom is that which makes men judge what are the best ends, and 
what the best means of attaining them, and gives a man advantage of 
counsel and direction — Sir William Temple. 

Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom. — Carlylk. 

Constantly choose rather to want less, than to have more. 

— Thomas A Kempis. 

To be happy is not the purpose of our being ; but to deserve 
happiness. — Fichte. 

Life was not given us to be used up in the pursuit of what we must 
leave behind us when we die. — Joseph May. 

I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time be- 
lieve — that no society can be upheld in honor and happiness without the 
sentiment of religion. — Laplace. 

(504) 



Jhanmtg* 



To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance — Jeremy Taylor. 

^FlSDOM is the end of Learning, 
' NCrD( ^ Wisdom which is life indeed : 
Learn and use, that end discerning, 
Thou dost live a hero's creed. 

Books are tools, not for parading, 
Nor to moulder on their shelves : 

Modestly they bring their lading, 
Modestly they give themselves : 

Eyes and ears and thoughts are better, 

In the shifting fight of life ; 
And the spirit, not the letter, 

Makes thee bravest for the strife. 

Wisdom is the end of Learning, 

Wisdom which is life indeed : 
Learn and use, that end discerning, 

Thou dost live a hero's creed. 



Wear your learning, like your watch, in a 
private pocket ; and do not pull it out and strike 
it, merely to show that you have one. If you 

33 ( 505 ) 



506 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not 
proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watch- 
man. — Lord Chesterfield. 

A pretender to learning is one that would 
make all others more fools than himself; for, 
though he know nothing, he would not have the 
world know so much. He conceits nothing in 
learning but the opinion, which he seeks to pur- 
chase without it, though he might with less labor 
cure his ignorance than hide it. He is, indeed, a 
kind of scholar mountebank, and his art our de- 
lusion. He is tricked out in all the accoutre- 
ments of learning, and at the first encounter 
none passes better. He is oftener in his study 
than at his book, and you cannot pleasure him 
better than to deprehend him : yet he hears you 
not till the third knock, and then comes out very 
angry, as interrupted. You find him in his 
slippers, and a pen in his ear, in which formality 
he was asleep. His table is spread wide with 
some classic folio, which is as constant to it as 
the carpet, and hath laid open at the same page 
this half- year. His candle is always a longer 
sicter - up than himself, and the boast of his win- 
dow at midnight. He walks much alone in the 
posture of meditation, and has a book before his 
face in the fields. His pocket is seldom without 
a Greek Testament or Hebrew Bible, which he 
opens only in the church, and that when some 
stander - by looks over. He has sentences for 
company — some scatterings of Seneca and Taci- 



LEARNING. 507 

tus — which are good upon all occasions. If he 
reads anything in the morning, it comes out all 
at dinner ; and as long as that lasts the discourse 
is his. He is a great plagiary of tavern wit, and 
comes to sermons only that he may talk of Aus- 
• tin. His parcels are the mere scrapings from 
company, yet he complains at parting what time 
he has lost. He is wonderfully capricious in giv- 
ing judgment, and listens with sour attention to 
what he understands not. He talks much of 
Sc^.liger, and Casaubon, and the Jesuits, and pre- 
fers some unheard - of Dutch name before them 
all. He has verses to bring in upon these and 
these hints, and it shall go hard, but he will 
wind in his opportunity. He is critical in a lan- 
guage he cannot construe, and speaks seldom 
under Arminius in divinity. His business or 
retirement with callers always is, his study, and he 
protests no delight to it comparable. He is a 
great nomenclator of authors, which he has read 
in general in the catalogue, and in particular in 
the title, and goes seldom so far as the dedica- 
tion. He never talks of anything but learning, 
and learns all from talking. Three encounters 
with the same man pump him, and then he only 
puts in or gravely says nothing. He hac taken 
pains to be an ass, though not to be a scholar, 
and is at length discovered and laughed at. — 
Bishop Earle. 

Learning is, in truth, a very great and a very 
considerable quality ; and such as despise it suf- 



508 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

ficiently discover their own want of understand- 
ing: but yet I do not prize it at the excessive 
rate some others do ; as Herillus, the philosopher, 
for one, who therein places the sovereign good, 
and maintained that it was only in her to render 
us wise and contented, which I do not believe : 
no more than I do what others have said, that 
learning is the mother of all virtue, and that all 
vice proceeds from ignorance, which, if it be true, 
is subject to a very long interpretation. — Mon- 
taigne. 

No man is wiser for his learning : it may ad- 
minister matter to work in, or object to work 
upon ; but wit and wisdom are born with a man. 
— Selden. 

The pride of learning and the abuse of learn- 
ing are fatal evils, and without the possession of 
it, no doubt the man of devoted piety, with 
merely the vernacular Scriptures in his hand, may 
be even eminently useful ; but there are higher 
and more extensive spheres of service which he 
is clearly not qualified to occupy. Learning, 
when employed not for ostentation, but for use; 
not to set up human wisdom in opposition to 
divine revelation, but humbly, patiently, and la- 
boriously to trace out, to exhibit, to assert, and 
to defend the revealed truth of God, and to 
apply it to all the varied purposes for which it 
was made known, is of the highest value. And 
let every younger student remember that he 
knows not to what scene of service he is destined; 



LEARNING. 509 

let it be his humble aim, depending upon, and 
seeking constantly, the divine blessing, to become 
as well qualified as possible for that station, be it 
what it may, to which it may please God to call 
him. And, in this view, let him duly consider 
the indefatigable labor, the diligent study, and the 
patient zeal of those great and good men (the 
Swiss Reformers), who, devoted to learning as 
they • were, yet did not pursue it for its own 
sake (or for the earthly distinctions it might gain 
for them), or lose themselves in a contemplative 
life, but denied themselves, and studied, and 
prayed without ceasing, in order that they might 
act with wisdom and success to the glory of God 
and the higher good of their fellow-men. There- 
fore is their memory blessed. — Dr. Thomas 
Scott. 

Learning maketh young men temperate, is 
the comfort of old age, standing for wealth with 
poverty, and serving for an ornament to riches. 
— Cicero. 

The chief art of learning is to attempt but 
little at a time. — Locke. 

Learning, like money, may be of so base a 
coin, as to be utterly void of use ; or, if sterling, 
may require good management to make it serve 
the purposes of sense or happiness.— Shenstone. 



510 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



*HE best of servants thou canst have 
A tyrant, if thou be its slave. 
Joy is not wedded to its use, 
And life is death in its abuse. 



Money is an exceeding good thing for its 
proper uses. I am much of the opinion of Rene, 
the Dutch barber at Cambridge, when I resided 
at that seat of learning. Rene was a virtuoso in 
his way, a collector of curious out-of-the-way 
things — stuffed birds, and other objects in natural 
history, old coins, medals, urns and vases, and 
other bits of antique pottery, savage arrows and 
arrow-heads, and the like. The walls of his two 
rooms were thickly garnished with these things, 
neatly put up in glazed cases. He was much 
pleased to be complimented on his collection ; 
though he always made a mild disclaimer of any 
special merit in it — intimating that his taste was 
superior to anything he could show, and that his 
collection would be much larger and of a much 
higher order but for his want of means to make 
it so. 

"Poverty," he would say, "poverty — it is no 
disgrace, sir, but a great inconvenience." I am 
quite of Rene's mind. I do not think any philoso- 



MONEY. 511 

pher could put the matter in a juster or better 
way. 

If a man likes to travel, or has an enjoyment 
in building, planting and landscape creation ; or 
in books and a large library ; or is a lover of 
art and pleased to possess good pictures, sculp- 
tures, and the like, as well as commodious furni- 
ture in good taste and keeping; — the want of 
money to procure these things is a decided in- 
convenience. And if the man who has plenty of 
money and sacredly sets apart a generous por- 
tion of it for the relief and welfare of his fellow- 
men, chooses to spend the residue of it in indul- 
gence of these liberal and cultivated tastes, he is 
not justly to be blamed for it, and certainly none 
but a mean - hearted man will envy him the con- 
veniences and elegancies and refined enjoyments 
he is able to procure. Who so base as to object 
to a Peabody's eating off plate and giving hospitable 
dinners to his friends, so long as he spends more 
hundreds of thousands for the good of mankind 
than thousands on himself and friends. 

But the shame and the mischief of the case 
among us is in the inordinate greed, the universal 
scramble for money, not for its proper uses, but 
for selfish or vulgar misuses of it. We are a 
nation of money seekers, — not from the miserly 
avarice which gathers and hoards it merely for 
its own sake as an end in itself (for this, I think, 
is far from being our vice as a people) but for 
the sake of the homage it secures, the power or 



512 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

influence it gives, or the rivalry with others in 
ostentations display which the extravagant expen- 
diture of it enables one to maintain. We are 
terribly a nation of money - seekers for these and 
the like selfish and comparatively ignoble ends, 
with scarcely a thought or desire of becoming 
able to do good and promote the welfare of so- 
ciety, actuating and sanctifying the eager, inces- 
sant struggle after riches. — This is the shame. 
And the mischief is not only in the lowering 
effect on the spirit of the people and on the tone 
of social life, (which is both cause and effect of 
extravagant expenditure and vulgar, ostentatious 
rivalry,) but in the reckless gambling disposition, 
the unscrupulousness, the shipwreck of integrity 
and honor, the defalcations and falseness to 
trusts, the dishonesties and frauds, that are en- 
gendered in this intense selfish struggle after 
great and quick -gained riches. We are going, 
morally, the road downwards with tremendous 
accelerating velocity, and where shall we come 
to ? Pandemonium was built and paved with 
molten gold. — C. S. Henry. 

The man who enslaves himself to his money 
is proclaimed in our very language to be a miser, 
or a miserable man. — Trench. 

Gold is a wonderful clearer of the under- 
standing : it dissipates every doubt and scruple 
in an instant ; accommodates itself to the mean- 
est capacities ; silences the loud and clamorous, 
and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. 



CONTENTMENT. 513 

Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible 
reason this way. He refuted by it all the wis- 
dom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, 
struck their orators dumb, and at length argued 
them out of all their liberties.— Addison. 

Chilon would say, that gold was tried with the 
touchstone and men with gold. — Lord Bacon. 

It is wonderful to consider how a command 
or call to be liberal, either upon a civil or re- 
ligious account, all of a sudden impoverishes the 
rich, breaks the merchant, shuts up every private 
man's exchequer, and makes those men in a 
minute have nothing who, at the very same in- 
stant, want nothing to spend. So that, instead of 
relieving the poor, such a command strangely in- 
creases their number, and transforms rich men 
into beggars presently.— South. 

A wise man should have money in his head; 
but not in his heart. — Swift. 



@0ttlsnfmsttL 



CONTENTMENT uses all the powers 
^ Wherewith the Lord His creature dowers. 

Contentment thrives and never knows 
The trouble which from folly grows. 



J 14 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Contentment is discreet and wise, 
And never vexed with lustful eyes. 

Contentment trusts in Providence, 
And finds that trust munificence. 

Contentment is abiding wealth, 
And measures spiritual health. 



Contentment is a pearl of great price, and 
whoever procures it at the expense of ten thou- 
sand desires makes a wise and happy purchase. 
— Balguy. 

This virtue (content) does indeed produce, in 
some measure, all those effects which the alchy- 
mist usually ascribes to what he calls the philoso- 
pher's stone ; and if it does not bring riches, it 
does the same thing, by banishing the desire of 
them, if it cannot remove the disquietudes aris- 
ing out of a man's mind, body, or fortune, it 
makes him easy under them. It has, indeed, a 
kindly influence on the soul of man in respect of 
every being to whom he stands related. It ex- 
tinguishes all murmur, repining, and ingratitude 
towards that Being who has allotted to him his 
part to act in this world. It destroys all inordi- 
nate ambition, and every tendency to corruption, 
with regard to the community wherein he is 
placed. It gives sweetness to his conversation, 
and a perpetual serenity to all his thoughts. 
Among the many methods which might be made 



CONTENTMENT. 515 

use of for the acquiring of this virtue, I shall 
mention the two following: First of all, a man 
should always consider how much he has more 
than he wants ; and, secondly, how much more 
unhappy he might be than he really is. — Addison. 

As for a little more money and a little more 
time, why it's ten to one if either one or the 
other would make you a whit happier. If you 
had more time, it would be sure to hang heavily. 
It is the workingman who is the happy man. 
Man was made to be active, and he is never so 
happy as when he is so. It is the idle man is 
the miserable man. What comes of holidays, and 
far too often of sight - seeing, but evil ? Half the 
harm that happens is on those days. And as for 
money — Don't you remember the old saying, 
" Enough is- as good as a feast ? " Money never 
made man happy yet, nor will it. There is noth- 
ing in its nature to produce happiness. The 
more a man has the more he wants. Instead of 
its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies 
one want, it doubles and trebles that want an- 
other way. That was a true proverb of the wise 
man, rely upon it : " Better is little with the fear 
of the Lord than great treasure, and trouble 
therewith." — Dr. Franklin. 

There are thousands so extravagant in their 
ideas of contentment as to imagine that it must 
consist in having everything in this world turn 
out the way they wish — that they are to sit down 
in happiness, and feel themselves so at ease on 



516 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

all points as to desire nothing better and nothing 
more. I own there are instances of some who 
seem to pass through the world as if their paths 
had been strewed with rosebuds of delight but a 
little experience will convince us 'tis a fatal ex- 
pectation to go upon. We are "born to trouble;" 
and we may depend upon it whilst we live in 
this world we shall have it, though with inter- 
missions ; — that is, in whatever, state we are, we 
shall find a mixture of good and evil ; and there- 
fore the true way to contentment is to know how 
to receive these certain vicissitudes of life, — the 
returns of good and evil, so as neither to be ex- 
alted by the one nor overthrown by the other, 
but to bear ourselves towards everything which 
happens with such ease and indifference of mind, 
as to hazard as little as may be. This is the 
true temperate climate fitted for us by nature, 
and in which every wise man would wish to live. 
— Sterne. 

That happy state of mind, s "> rarely possessed, 
in which we can say, " I have enough," is the 
highest attainment of philosophy. Happiness con- 
sists, not in possessing much, but in being con- 
tent with what we possess. He who wants little 
always has enough. — Zimmerman. 




" lie is the Rainbow of the heart, 
Which was and is and is to be, 

And, when the Rainbow must depart, 
The Light that shines eternally." 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 517 



irHnsftttjmaltons* 



Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. 

— St. Matthew xxviii. 20. 

ffiTE is the Rainbow of the heart, 
^^ Which was, and is, and r to be, 
And, when the Rainbow must depart, 
The Light that sh'nes eternally. 

His everlasting loveliness 

A little while is Peace and Rest: 

Nothing of earth can long express 
The Lord Almighty at His best. 

To - day He is the Energy 

That never falters in the race : 

To - morrow laureled Victory 

Proclaims Him with another Face. 

And I have seen Him in Defeat 

As beautiful as anywhere, 
Lifting the fallen to their feet, 

And bringing courage from despair. 

His countenance is that of Freedom 
When men are pulling tyrants down: 

He comes, like One who came from Edom, 
The toil of His redeemed to crown. 

Devotion is the form He wears 
Within the cloister's narrow aisle; 



518 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And Conscience in her heart declares 
He is the Life that knows no guile. 

He changes into Charity 

When self is passing out of sight, 
In pain becomes Humanity 

Through suffering divinely bright. 

The very Bird of Paradise, 

He lights and shows Himself in part, 
Then flies away to other skies 

In other regions of the heart. 

Ah me ! all moulds distort, or scrimp, 
Or keep some proper feature back: 

Comparisons forever limp, 

One foot at least forever lack. 

The marks of Christ forever change 
Through some supreme Eternal law: 

The Universe His mighty range 
For signs of comfort and of awe. 

O His perennial Life on earth 

Which He bestows upon His own, 

Grows from the feebleness of birth, 
And in ten thousand forms is known. 

To judge Him who is all in all, 
As only what He seems below, 

Were into grievous sin to fall 

And bind His grace to what we know. 



TRANSFORMATIONS. 519 

The blessed tokens of His love 

Are endless as Eternal Life, 
And showered forever from above, 

With many a form and aspect rife. 

Dear Lord ! help me to keep my heart 
From sin and its pollution free ; 

So shall I see Thee where Thou art, 
And take Thy blessing ere Thou flee: 

Assured that in the change forever 
Thou art the One who changest not, 

The Infinite in man's endeavor, 

Transformed, indeed, but in his thought. 



Let no man or woman think, who is still 
young, on whom the necessary calm of age has 
not fallen, th; t they will have a quiet life, if they 
are in earnest, for many years to come, either in 
the world without or in the world within them. 
Development must have its rude shocks, evolu- 
tion its transient earthquakes, progress its back- 
slidings. Accept the necessity, count the cost, 
make ready to take your part in the things 
which are coming on the earth. Be true to the 
vast Christian principles of the Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of Man ; steadily go to 
war with every opinion and system which tends 
to limit them and enslave men. But in fighting 
against systems and opinions, do not be betrayed 
yourselves into intolerance of men, into inability 



520 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

to see the good in the evil, into any statement or 
action which may practically deny that the men 
whose views you oppose are children of God and 
your brethren in Christ. Constantly keep your 
temper in the battle ; guard jealously your power 
of looking on all sides of questions ; watch over 
yourself that you may be above all things just to 
men and their opinions. Clear your minds from 
narrowness — the narrowness of religion, the nar- 
rowness of skepticism, the norrov/ness of intel- 
lectual vanity ; keep yourself apart from particu- 
lar sets of men and opinion. They tend to fix 
you down, to limit your life, to fetter your 
thought, to make you wise in your own conceits. 
See that you mix with men your brothers, with 
those who differ from yourselves, who oppose and 
contradict you. Do not ride at anchor in a safe 
and land - locked bay, in cultured comfort of 
thought, having put aside all troublesome ques- 
tions of the unknown. You cannot quench the 
spirit within you, without making the intellect 
one - sided and the conscience intolerant or dull. 
Rather tempt the ocean paths and sail on to a 
boundless horizon, gaining strength from trial of 
your skill, wisdom from the storms of life, tender- 
ness from its sorrows, love from assisting others, 
and faith in the final issue from the clear inward 
consciousness that you are growing up into all 
that is best in human nature, into all that is of 
Christ. Progress is the law of the world, it is 
the law that ought to rule our lives. See that 



FATE. 621 

you are an active part of the great evolution of 
the race. What matters after all — the catastrophe, 
the convulsions of heart and intellect you must 
suffer, the shattered sail, the midnight watch in 
the hurricane, the loneliness of the mid - ocean ? 
It is life at least, it is more, it is moving with 
the movement of the world, and the world is 
moving in Christ. — Stopford A. Brooke. 



lak 



^WATE is irrevocable Law 

< "~ s ^ Which holds the Universe in awe, 

And measures unto every man 

His place in God's good plan ; 

In which no contradictions are, 
Or here or in remotest star ; 
Where truth is, truth, and lies are lies, 
Above, beneath all skies. 

And yet — to make more beautiful 
A world, of truth and freedom full — 
Fate turned to Law is changed to Grace 
Before Immanuel's face. 

34 



522 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

And every crying child of Fate, 
An orphan and without estate, 
Finds, when escaped from self and thrall, 
That he possesses all. 



I know not whether there be, as is alleged, in 
the upper region of our atmosphere, a perma- 
nent westerly current, which carries with it all 
atoms that rise to that height, but I see that 
when souls reach a certain clearness of percep- 
tion, they accept a knowledge and motive above 
selfishness. A breath of will blows eternally 
through the universe of souls in the direction of 
the Right and Necessary. It is the air which all 
intellects inhale and exhale, and it is the wind 
which blows the worlds into order and orbit. . . . 

Fate is unpenetrated causes. The water 
drowns ship and sailor, like a grain of dust. 
But learn to swim, trim your bark, and the wave 
which drowned it, will be cloven by it, and carry 
it, like its own foam, a plume and a power. 
The cold is inconsiderate of persons, tingles your 
blood, freezes a man like a dew-drop. But 
learn to skate, and the ice will give you a grace- 
ful, sweet and poetic motion. The cold will brace 
your limbs and brain to genius, and make you 
foremost men of time. Cold and sea will train 
an imperial Saxon race, which nature cannot bear 
to lose, and after cooping it for a thousand 
years in yonder England, gives a hundred Eng- 
lands, a hundred Mexicos. ... 



FATE. 523 

The annual slaughter from typhus far exceeds 
that of war ; but right drainage destroys typhus. 
The plague in the sea - service from scurvy is 
healed by lemon juice and other diets portable 
or procurable : the depopulation by cholera and 
small - pox is ended by drainage and vaccination ; 
and every other pest is not less in the chain of 
cause and effect, and may be fought off. — 
Emerson. 

As soon as the relation of cause and effect 
appears, the aspect of Fate is changed, Yet it 
does not cease to trouble us. It only dashes 
away, like an Arab of the desert, to beset us 
again in some new position. But wherever the 
next onset may be, we have only to tear off the 
mask, if that be possible, to find the face of Law. 
And so on to the end. . 

No man may fold his arms and say, "Things 
must be so ; and in erring, I yield but to nature." 
There is no fate in this world, like the fate that 
a man makes for himself. That is fate, indeed — 
the inevitable necessity, that every man must 
freely work out his own weal or woe — the fact 
on which hinges the whole moral philosophy of 
human life and history. It is a fact, unalterable, 
fixed as adamant. Whether we build upon that 
rock, or break upon that rock — one thing is cer- 
tain — it cannot be removed. But we. may build 
upon it : and therefore to point it out, and, amidst 
the waves, the strifes and perils of human exist- 
ence,- to lift it up clearly to view, is to send out 



524 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

a challenge to all the spiritual heroism in the 
world, aye, and an alarm - call to all the sluggard 
indolence in the world ; and to summon every 
man that lives to do all that he can for himself, 
and to do all that he can for others. To arm 
the soul to look that dread fact of inalienable 
moral responsibility fairly in the face, and to 
arouse the soul to discharge itself of that stu- 
pendous trust with humility and resolution — 
these are the highest ends of all right study 
and of all true wisdom. 

I say in fine, and I say plainly, that for sickly 
complainers, for poor voluptuaries, for weak 
worldlings — for ignoble creatures that had rather 
be innocent sheep and be happy, than wrest- 
ling angel - natures, taking blows and wounds in 
the lists of virtue — I have no doctrine to de- 
liver. I say deliberately and firmly, that I had 
rather have commenced my existence as I have, 
than in some imaginary elysium of negative, sta- 
tionary, choiceless, unprogressive innocence and 
enjoyment. 

Give me freedom, give me knowledge, give 
me breadth of experience ; I would have it all. 
No memory is so hallowed, no memory so dear, 
as that of temptation nobly withstood, or of suf- 
fering nobly endured. What is it that we gather 
and garner up from the solemn story of the 
world, like its struggles, its sorrows, its martyr- 
doms? Come to the great battle, thou wrestling, 
o-lorious, marred nature; strong nature! weak na- 



FREEDOM. 525 

ture! — come to the great battle, and, in this 
mortal strife, strike for immortal victory ! The 
highest Son of God — the best beloved of Heaven 
that ever stood upon earth — was " made perfect 
through sufferings." And sweeter shall be the 
cup of immortal joy, for that it was once dashed 
with bitter drops of pain and sorrow; and brighter 
shall roll the everlasting ages, for the dark 
shadows that clouded this birthtime of our be- 
ing. — Dewey. 



l|mkm + 



The Truth shall make you free. — St. John viii. 32. 

9WLL possibilities are his 

^^ Whose life proclaims what Freedom is: 

Joy, joy which is the spirit's token 

The fetters of the man are broken; 

The bow that spans the firmament 

At the Accuser's banishment; 

The mountain air of happiness 

Above the breath of selfishness : 

Faith which transfigures and inspires 

And lights in man undying fires; 

Bright Hope, which sets the world aglow 

And watches angels come and go ; 



526 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Sweet sunshine from the face of Love, 

Which maketh Earth like Heaven above 

The vision of a living soul 

That sees in every part the Whole; 

The will and energy sublime 

To grasp Eternity in Time ; 

Yea, all things born of God are his 

Whose life proclaims what Freedom is ! 



I call that mind free which masters the senses, 
which protects itself against animal appetites, 
which contemns pleasure and pain in comparison 
with its own energy, which penetrates beneath 
the body and recognizes its own reality and 
greatness, which passes life, not in asking what it 
shall eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting, and 
seeking after righteousness. 

I call that mind free which escapes the bond- 
age of matter, which, instead of stopping at the 
material universe and making it a prison wall, 
passes beyond it to its Author, and finds in the 
radiant signatures which it everywhere bears of 
the Infinite Spirit, helps to its own spiritual en- 
largement. 

I call that mind free which jealously guards 
its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no 
man master, which does not content itself with 
a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to 
light whencesoever it may come, which receives 
new truth as an angel from heaven, which, whilst 
consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle 



FREEDOM. 527 

within itself, and uses instructions from abroad 
not to supersede but to quicken and exalt its 
own energies. 

I call that mind free which sets no bounds to 
its love, which is not imprisoned in itself or in a 
sect, which recognizes in all human beings the 
image of God and the rights of His children, 
which delights in virtue and sympathizes with 
suffering wherever they are seen, which conquers 
pride, anger, and sloth, and offers itself up a 
willing victim to the cause of mankind. 

I call that mind free which is not passively 
framed by outward circumstances, which is not 
swept away by the torrent of events, which is 
not the creature of accidental impulse, but which 
bends events to its own improvement, and acts 
from an inward spring, from immutable principles 
which it has deliberately espoused. 

I call that mind free which protects itself 
against the usurpations of society, which does not 
cower to human opinion, which feels itself ac- 
countable to a higher tribunal than man's, which 
respects a higher law than fashion, which respects 
itself too much to be the slave or tool of the 
many or the few. 

I call that mind free which, through confidence 
in God and in the power of virtue, has cast off 
all fear but that of wrong - doing, which no men- 
ace or peril can enthrall, which is calm in the 
midst of tumults, and possesses itself though all 
else be lost. 



528 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

I call that mind free which resists the bond- 
age of habit, which does not mechanically repeat 
itself and copy the past, which does not live on 
its old virtues, which does not enslave itself to 
precise rules, but which forgets what is behind, 
listens for new and higher monitions of con- 
science, and rejoices to pour itself forth in fresh 
and higher exertions. 

I call that mind free which is jealous of its 
own freedom, which guards itself from being 
merged in others, which guards its empire over 
itself as nobler than the empire of the world. 

In fine, I call that mind free which, conscious 
of its affinity with God, and confiding in His 
promises by Jesus Christ, devotes itself faithfully 
to the unfolding of all its powers, which passes 
the bounds of time and death, which hopes to 
advance forever, and which finds inexhaustible 
power, both for action and suffering, in the pros- 
pect of immortality. — Channing. 



tutt 



Wliy ^tand ye gazing up into heaven? — Acts I. II. 

N gazing up to heaven 



^ In idle ecstacy, 



ACTION. 529 

What progress make we to the haven 
Where we at length would be? 

In heaven - appointed work 

The sure advancement lies, 
Wherein the dearest comforts lurk 

There are beneath the skies. 

How David wrought of old, 

Like One to him unknown, 
To bring again the Age of Gold 

Which from the world had flown ! 

His conquest of the bear 

And lion in his youth 
Was prophecy which everywhere 

Proclaimed the way of Truth. 

In action day by day 

His mighty manhood grew, 
A character to live for aye, 

It was so strong and true. 

He grappled with all rude 

And unpropitious things : 
A garden from the solitude 

Smiled to the King of kings. 

His enemies became 

As stubble to the fire, 
Till songs of praise, like leaping flame, 

Burst from his sacred lyre. 



530 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

He wrought his people good : 
He left a name behind, 

The strength of honest brotherhood, 
And richer made mankind. 

And so it ever is : 

In usefulness and zeal 
The Lord announces who are His 

And gives eternal weal. 



Action is the highest perfection and drawing 
forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of 
man's nature. God is pleased to vouchsafe the 
best that he can give only to the best that we 
can do. The properest and most raised concep- 
tion that we have of God is, that He is a pure 
act, a perpetual, incessant motion. — South. 

Act well at the moment, and you have per- 
formed a good action to all eternity. — Lavater. 

There is no action of man in this life, which 
is not the beginning of so long a chain of con- 
sequences, as that no human providence is high 
enough to give us a prospect to the end. — 
Thomas of Malmesbury. 

That every man should regulate his actions 
by his own conscience, without any regard to the 
opinions of the rest of the world, is one of the 
first precepts of moral prudence; justified not 
only by the suffrage of reason, which declares 
that none of the gifts of Heaven are to lie use- 
less, but by the voice likewise of experience, 



ACTION. 531 

which will soon inform us that, if we make the 
praise or blame of others the rule of our con- 
duct, we shall be distracted by a boundless 
variety of irreconcilable judgments, be held in 
perpetual suspense between contrary impulses, 
and consult forever without determination. — Dr. 
Johnson. 

The actions of men are oftener determined by 
their character than their interest : their conduct 
takes its color more from their acquired tastes, 
inclinations, and habits, than from a deliberate 
regard to their greatest good. It is only on 
great occasions the mind awakes to take an ex- 
tended survey of her whole course, and that she 
suffers the dictates of reason to impress a new 
bias upon her movements. The actions of each 
day are, for the most part, links which follow 
each other in the chain of custom. Hence the 
great effort of practical wisdom is to imbue the 
mind with right tastes, affections and habits ; the 
elements of character and masters of action. — 
Robert Hall. 

The only things in which we can be said to 
have any property are our actions. Our thoughts 
may be bad, yet produce no poison ; they may 
be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may 
be taken from us by misfortune, our reputation 
by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by 
disease, our friends by death. But our actions 
must follow us beyond the grave : with respect to 
them alone we cannot say that we shall carry 



532 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

nothing with us when we die, neither that we 
shall go naked out of the world. Our actions 
must clothe us with an immortality, loathsome or 
glorious : these are the only title - deeds of which 
we cannot be disinherited ; they will have their 
full weight in the balance of eternity, when every- 
thing else is as nothing ; and their value will be 
confirmed and established by those two sure and 
sateless destroyers of all other earthly things, — 
Time and Death. — Colton. 

Under no conceivable set of circumstances are 
we justified in sitting 

" By the poisoned springs of life, 

Waiting for the morrow which shall free us from the strife." 

Under no circumstances, whether of pain, or 
grief, or disappointment, or irreparable mistake, 
can it be true that there is not something to be 
done, as well as something to be suffered. And 
thus it is that the spirit of Christianity draws 
over our life, not a leaden cloud of Remorse and 
Despondency, but a sky, — not, perhaps, of radiant 
but yet of most serene and chastened and manly 
hope. There is a Past which is gone forever. 
But there is a Future which is still our own. — 
F. W. Robertson. 



THE SOLDIER OF CHRIST. 



>fp jSafobr nf %\mi 



VjM 



,,Q CHILD of great affliction, 
^^ O child of greater joy ! 
God, God will grant His benediction, 
And find for thee employ. 

Go forth — the world is waiting — 

Go forth in all thy youth ; 
Naught of thy heavenly strength abating, 

Fight thou the fight of truth. 

Thy sword is from the Spirit, 

Whose thrusts are brave and quick : 

Thou hast above thyself a merit — 
What though the foes be thick ? 

And One who came from Edom 

In greatness of His might, 
Abides with thee to strike for freedom 

And citadel the right. 

There is no grander mission 

Than God assigneth thee : 
There is no mightier commission 

Than that of Liberty. 

Rejoice with joy exceeding, 
O thou forever true ; 



534 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

For others fighting, toiling, pleading, 
Thy heavenly strength renew. 

The Truce of God will hasten 
With many a psalm of peace, 

Or constant warfare prove and chasten 
Until the great release. 

Thou canst not miss thy wages ! — 
What though thine eye be dim ? 

The Master's eye is on the ages, 
All times belong to Him. 

And when in separation 

Of good and evil here, 
The long, long wished-for consummation, 

New heavens and earth appear, 

O thine will be the wonder 

All free from wild alarms ; 
For thou — thou art forever under 

The Everlasting Arms. 



For that terrible saying of Anne of Austria 
to Richelieu holds true for mercy as well as for 
judgment : " My Lord Cardinal, God does not 
pay at the end of every week, but at the last He 
pays. " God may put His faithful ones upon a 
long and painful apprenticeship, during which they 
learn much and receive little, — food only, and 
"that in a measure," — often the bread and water 
of affliction. Yet at the last He pays ; pays 



REST. 535 

them into their hearts, pays them into their hands 
also. We may remember long seasons of faint 
yet honest endeavor ; the prayers of a soul yet 
without strength ; the sacrifice of an imperfectly 
subdued will, bound even with cords to the altar ; 
we may remember such times, or we may forget 
them, but their result is with us. Some of the 
good seed sown in tears is now shedding a heav- 
enly fragrance within our lives, and some of it 
will blossom, perhaps bear fruit, over our graves. 
— Miss Green well. 



\nl 



^EST! Rest! Rest! 

~*^ The sweetness of His word, 

Who speaks to them that are distressed, 

With all their trouble stirred : 

The fellowship with One 
Who knows the cares which life infest, 

And how release is won. 

Rest! Rest! Rest! 
The calm within the heart, 
Which, humbled, has at last confessed, 
And felt its sin depart; 



536 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

As undefined in form 
And all as hard to be expressed 
As sunshine after storm. 

Rest! Rest! Rest! 

The sense of something done, 
A little nearer what is best 

Before the setting- sun : 

A fairer, purer light, 
That does not fear the inner test, 

Self further out of sight. 

Rest! Rest! Rest! 

The beauty of the soul 
In her ethereal glory dressed, 

Her eye upon the goal : 

Which often-times we feel 
Along our journey to the West, 

And silently reveal. 

Rest! Rest! Rest! 

Love growing beautiful, 
Our purposes of Heaven blest, 

Until our days are full : 

The end of Fast and Feast, 
The folded hands upon the breast, 

The looking to the East. 

Rest! Rest! Res.: 
To wake all satisfied, 
With immortality possessed, 



BEST. 537 

Like Him who for us died : 
And in the land above 
To seek some higher mountain-crest, 
Increasing still in love. 



It is not the lake locked in ice that suggests 
repose, but the river moving on calmly and rapidly 
in silent majesty and strength. It is not the cat- 
tle lying in the sun, but the eagle cleaving the 
air with fixed pinions, that gives you the idea of 
repose combined with strength and motion. In 
creation, the Rest of God is exhibited as a sense 
of Power which nothing wearies. When chaos 
burst into harmony, so to speak, God had Rest. 

There are two deep principles in Nature in 
apparent contradiction, — one the aspiration after 
perfection ; the other, the longing after repose. 
In the harmony of these lies the rest of the soul 
of man. There have been times when we have 
experienced this. Then the winds have been 
hushed, and the throb and the tumult of the 
passions have been blotted out of our bosoms. 
That was a moment when we were in harmony 
with all around, reconciled to ourselves and to 
our God; when we sympathized with all that was 
pure, all that was beautiful, all that was lovely. 

This was not stagnation, it was fulness of 
life, — life in its most expanded form, such as 
Nature witnessed in her first hour. This is life 
in that form of benevolence which expands into 
the mind of Christ. And when this is working 

35 



538 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

in the soul, it is marvellous how its distils into a 
man's words and countenance. Strange and magi- 
cal is the power of that collect wherein we pray 
to God, "Who alone can order the unruly wills 
and affections of sinful men, to grant unto His 
people that they may love the thing which He 
commands, and desire that which He promises ; 
that so among the sundry and manifold changes 
of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed 
where true joys are to be found. " There is a 
wondrous melody in that rhythm ; the words are 
the echoes of the thought. The mind of the man 
who wrote them was in repose, — all is ringing of 
rest. We do not wonder when Moses came down 
from the mount on which he had been bowing in 
adoration before the harmony of God, that his 
face was shining with a brightness too dazzling 
to look upon. 

Brother man, there is Rest in Christ, because 
He is Love ; because His are the everlasting 
Verities of Humanity. God does not cease to be 
the God of Love because men are low, sad, and 
desponding. In the performance of duty, in meek- 
ness, in trust in God, is our rest, — our only rest. 
It is not in understanding a set of doctrines; not 
in ■ an outward comprehension of the " scheme of 
salvation, " that rest and peace are to be found, 
but in taking up in all lowliness and meekness 
the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. — F. W. Rob- 
ertson. 



THANKS. 639 



»{pinlv$ + 



In every thing give thanks. — I. Thessalonians v. 18. 

Wi ORD, Thou hast all my sins forgiven, 
0>?d~ Let not my thanks grow old, 
Thy love assureth me of Heaven, 
Let not my thanks grow old. 

Through Thee alone my soul prevaileth, 
Let not my thanks grow old, 

Thy dear compassion never faileth, 
Let not thy thanks grow old. 

Thou hast been with me in affliction, 
Let not my thanks grow old, 

And turned it into benediction, 
Let not my thanks grow old. 

Thou hast not left me in my blindness, 

Let not my thanks grow old, 
But lighted me with loving-kindness, 

Let not my thanks grow old. 

Thy Providence has not abated, 
Let not my thanks grow old ; 

I know I am to Thee related, 
Let not my thanks grow old. 

I know Thou art my Father, Saviour, 
Let not my thanks grow old, 



540 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Who hast bestowed on me such favor, 
Let not my thanks grow old. 

New are Thy mercies every morning, 
Let not my thanks grow old, 

At evening fresh as at the dawning, 
Let not my thanks grow old. 

Through all my days, my good forecasting, 

Thy love has not grown old, 
So true and strong and everlasting, 

And can my thanks grow old ? 



Annihilate not the mercies of God by the ob- 
livion of ingratitude : for oblivion is a kind of 
annihilation ; and for things to be as though they 
had not been, is like unto never being. Make 
not thy head a grave, but a repository of God's 
mercies. Though thou hadst the memory of 
Seneca, or Simonides, and conscience, the punct- 
ual memorist within us, yet trust not to thy re- 
membrance in things which need phylacteries. 
Register not only strange, but merciful occurences. 
Let ephemerides, not olympiads, give thee account 
of His mercies ; let thy diaries stand thick with 
dutiful mementos and asterisks of acknowledgment. 
And to be complete and forget nothing, date not 
His mercy from thy nativity ; look beyond the 
world, and before the sra of Adam.— Sir Thomas 
Browne. 

I saw on the seashore a holy man, who had 






THANKS. 541 

been torn by a tiger ; and could get no salve to 
heal his wound. For a length of time he suffered 
much pain, and was all along offering thanks to 
the Most High. They asked him, saying, " Why 
are you so grateful?" He answered, "God be 
praised that I am overtaken with misfortune and 
not with sin. " — From the Persian. 

I am thankful for small mercies. I compared 
notes with one of my friends who expects every- 
thing of the universe, and is disappointed when 
anything is less than the best; and I found that 
I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, 
and am always full of thanks for moderate goods. 
— Emerson. 

Father, we thank Thee that while heaven and 
the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thine all- 
trancendent being, yet Thou livest and movest 
and workest in all things that are ; causing, guid- 
ing, and blessing all and each. 

We thank Thee for the material world, with 
which Thou hast environed us, beneath, and about, 
and overhead. We thank Thee for the night, 
where Thy moon walks in brightness, with a star 
or two beside her; and we bless Thee for the 
sun, who curiously prepares the chambers of the 
East with his beauty, and then pours out the 
golden day upon the waiting and expectant earth. 
We thank Thee for the new life that comes ting- 
ling in the boughs of every great or little tree ; 
which is green in the new-ascended grass, and 
transfigures itself in the flowers to greater bright- 



542 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

ness than Solomon ever put on. We thank Thee 
for the seed which the farmer cradles in the 
ground, which thence lifts up its face of multitu- 
dinous prophecy, telling of harvests that are to 
come. We thank Thee also for the garments of 
prophecy with which Thou girdest the forests, and 
adornest every tree. We bless Thee for the 
fresh life which teems in the waters about us, 
and in the little brooks which run among the hills, 
which warbles in the branches of the trees, and 
hums with new-born insects throughout the peo- 
pled land. O Lord, we thank Thee for this day 
so fair and sweet, when the trees lift up their 
hands in a psalm of gratitude to Thee, and every 
little flower that opens its cup, and every wand- 
ering bird seems filled with Thy Spirit, and to 
be grateful unto Thee. We thank Thee for all 
Thy hand-writings of revelation on the walls of 
the world ; on the heavens above us, and the 
ground beneath ; and for all the testimonies re- 
corded there of Thy presence, Thy power, Thy 
justice, and Thy love. 

We thank Thee for that perpetual spring- 
time with which Thou visitest the human soul. 
We bless Thee for the Sun of righteousness 
which never sets, never allows any night there, 
but with healing in His beams, showers down 
perennial day on eyes that open, and on hearts 
that longingly lift themselves up to Thee. We 
thank Thee for the great truths that shine to 
us ; for the lesser lights, like the moon in the 



THANKS. 543 

darkness of the night ; and for those great lights, 
which pour out a continuous and never-ending 
day wheresoever we turn our weary mortal feet. 
We thank Thee for the generous emotions which 
spring up anew in every generation of mankind ; 
for the justice that faints not, nor is weary ; for 
the philanthropy which goes out and brings the 
wanderer home, which lifts up the fallen and heals 
the sick, which is eyes to the blind and feet to 
the lame. We thank Thee for the piety which 
has inspired Thy sons in many a distant age, and 
in every peopled land ; and we bless Thee that 
it springs anew in our own hearts, drawing us 
unto Thee, shedding peace along our pathway 
here, and giving us multitudinous prophecies of 
glories yet to come. 

O Thou who art Infinite Perfection, we thank 
Thee for Thyself. We know that out of Thy wis- 
dom, power and love have proceeded this world 
of matter, this world of man, and that kingdom 
of heaven into which we all hope to enter at last. 
We thank Thee for the loving-kindness and ten- 
der mercies over all Thy works ; and where we 
can only see through a glass darkly, we will trust 
in Thee with infinite longing which casteth out 
every fear. — Theodore Parker. 

God! God! 
I thank Thee for a life of use : 

God! God! 
I do not pine for any truce. 



544 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Peace, Peace, 
Has always come from duty done: 

Peace, Peace, 
Will so, until the end, be won. 

Thanks ! Thanks ! 
A thankful heart is my reward : 

Thanks ! Thanks ! 
Befit the children of the Lord. 

Wind ! Wind ! 
The peaceful reel must still go round : 

Wind ! Wind ! 
The thread of life will soon be wound. 



JVm^ijs* 



Vials full of odors.— Revelation v. 8. 

JS THOU who art the flame 
<2 *^' To keep the world alive, 
Burn, burn away my sin and shame, 
My dying life revive. 

The fire of heart and lip 
May not in me. be lit, 



PRAYERS. 545 

Except, O Breath of Fellowship, 
Thou somehow kindle it. 

Breathe in my cold, cold heart, 

And in this icy soul, 
Till warmth shall wondrously impart 

Its likeness to the whole. 

And bid me go in search ' 

Of what true life desires, 
And through Thine all-embracing church 

Help light undying fires. 

Or if that may not be, 

Let me abide Thy will, 
And drink the cup Thou givest me, 

And in Thy love be still. 

We go to God by prayers, not by steps. 
— Bishop Andrews. 

Good prayers never come creeping home. I 
am sure I shall receive either what I ask or what 
I should ask. — Bishop Hall. 

It was the saying of a learned man, saith Dr. 
Lightfoot, that he got more knowledge by his 
prayers than by all his studies. — Bishop Wilson. 

To distort one's eyes in prayer does not seem 
to me necessary; I hold it better to be natural. 
But one must not blame a man on that account, 
provided he is not a hypocrite. But that a man 
should make himself great and broad in prayer, 



5-46 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



that, it seems to me, deserves reproach, and is 
not to be endured. One may have courage and 
confidence, but he must not be conceited and wise 
in his own conceit ; for if one knows how to coun- 
sel and help himself, the shortest way is to do 
it. Folding the hands is a fine external decorum, 
and looks as if one surrendered himself without 
capitulation, and laid down his arms. But the 
inward, secret yearning, billow-heaving, and wish- 
ing of the heart, that, in my opinion, is the chief 
thing in prayer ; and therefore I cannot under- 
stand what people mean who will not have us 
pray. It is just as if they said one should not 
wish, or one should have no beard and no ears. 
That must be a blockhead of a boy who should 
have nothing to ask of his father, and who should 
deliberate the whole day whether he will let it come 
to that extremity. When the wish within concerns 
you nearly, and is of a warm complexion, it will 
not question long ; it will overpower you like a 
strong and armed man. It will just hurry on a 
few rags of words, and knock at the door of 
heaven. 

Whether the prayer of a moved soul can ac- 
complish or effect anything, or whether the Nextis 
Rerum (connection of things) does not allow of 
that, as some learned gentlemen think, — on that 
point I shall enter into no controversy. I have 
great respect for the Nexus Rerum, but I cannot 
help thinking of Samson, who left the Nexus of 
the gate-leaves unimpared and carried the whole 



PRA YERS. 547 

gate, as every one knows, to the top of the hill. 
And, in short, I believe that the rain comes when 
it is dry, and that the heart does not cry in vain 
after fresh water, if we pray aright and are 
rightly disposed. 

" Our Father " is once for all the best prayer, 
for you know who made it But no man on 
God's earth can pray it after Him, precisely as 
He meant it. We cripple it with a distant imi- 
tation ; and each more miserably than the other. 
But that matters not, if we only mean well ; 
the dear God must do the best part at any 
rate, and He knows how it ought to be. Because 
you desire it, I will tell you sincerely how I man- 
age with " Our Father. " But it seems to me a 
very poor way, and I would gladly be taught a 
better. 

Do you see, when I am going to pray, I think 
first of my late father, how he was so good and 
loved so well to give to me. And then I picture 
to myself the whole world as my Father's house, 
and all the people in Europe, Asia, Africa, and 
America are then in my thoughts, my brothers 
and sisters ; and God is sitting in heaven on a 
golden chair, and has his right hand stretched out 
over the sea to the end of the world, and His 
left full of blessings and goods ; and all around 
the mountain-tops smoke ; and then I begin : — 

Ou? Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be 
Thy name. — Here I am already at fault. The Jews 
are said to have known special mysteries respect- 



548 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

ing the name of God. But I let all that be, and 
only wish the thought of God, and every trace 
by which we can recognize Him, may be great 
and holy above all things, to me and all men. 

Thy Kingdom come. — Here I think of myself, 
how it drives hither and thither within me, and 
how this governs, and now that ; and that all is 
sorrow of heart, and I can light on no green 
branch. And then I think how good it would be 
for me, if God put an end to all discord, and 
govern me himself. 

Thy will be done as in Heaven so on Earth. — 
Here I picture to myself heaven and the holy 
angels who do His will with joy, and no sorrow 
touches them ; . . . and then I think if it were 
only so here on earth ! 

Forgive us otir debts as we forgive our debtors. 
— It hurts when one receives an affront ; and 
revenge is sweet to man. It seems so to me, 
too, and my inclination leads that way. But then 
the wicked servant in the Gospel passes before 
my eyes, and my heart fails, and I resolve, that 
I will forgive my fellow-servant and not say a 
word to him about the hundred pence. 

And lead us not into temptation. — Here I think 
of various instances where people in such and 
such circumstances have strayed from the good, 
and have fallen ; and that it would be no better 
with me. 

But deliver us from evil. — Here I still think 
of temptations, and that man is so easily seduced 



PRA YERS. 549 

and may stray from the straight path. But at the 
same time I think of all the troubles of life, of 
consumption and of old age, of the pains of child- 
birth, of gangrene and insanity, and the thousand- 
fold misery and heart-sorrow that is in the world, 
and that plagues and tortures poor mortals, and 
there is none to help. And you will find, if tears 
have not come before, they will be sure to come 
here ; and one can feel such a hearty yearning 
to be away, and can be so sad and cast down 
in one's self, as if there were no help at all. 
But then one must pluck up courage again, lay 
the hand upon the mouth and continue, as it were 
in triumph. 

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and 
the glory forever. Amen. — Matthias Claudius. 

For Earnestness. — O God, let us not linger at 
the threshold of Christianity ; conduct us into the 
inmost depths of life. Help us to break through 
the obstacles, the doubts, the desponding lethargy, 
weakness, which hinder us. Open in us an un- 
quenchable aspiration for truth and virtue. Give 
us a spirit of rational filial, strong, unreserved, 
triumphant, glad obedience. Give us perfect con- 
fidence in Thee, whose laws are the dictates of 
fatherly wisdom and love, and who dost delight 
in the purity and glory of Thy children. 

Dispose us to see Thy goodness everywhere, 
not only when descending upon us, but when 
diffused abroad, so that we may discern the love 
which pervades the universe and quickens all 
spirits. 



550 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Make us sensible of inward wants, indigence, 
destitution, weakness. Lay open to us our cor- 
rupt motives. Expose to us our hidden vices in 
all their depravity. Teach us to look steadily into 
ourselves till we see, with something of Thine 
own abherence, every evil affection. Lead us a- 
way from false resources to a sure dependence 
on Thy perfect will, and may this reign supreme 
within us. 

Help us to look through the disguises of self- 
love, to judge ourselves truly, to anticipate the 
revelations of the last day ; and let not this know- 
ledge of our deficiencies and deformities fill us 
with dejection, but rather endear us to Thy mercy, 
and lead us to Thy grace, while rousing as to 
vigilance and to firm and faithful conflict with 
every irregular desire. — Channing. 

Morning Prayer. — Our Father in Heaven, we 
thank Thee for the return of this morning, and 
for the renewal of our daily blessings. We love 
to feel that we are always surrounded by Thee, 
and that the blessings of each day are the gifts 
of Thy providence. We love to feel that Thou 
art coming to us in the joy and freshness of 
the morning, in the serenity and peace of the 
evening, in the love of our loved ones, in the 
happiness of our home, in the discipline of daily 
experience, and in all things which make us glad 
and strong, and heavenly-minded. And now, be- 
fore entering upon the labors and trials of this 
day, we meet together that we may think how 



PRAYERS. o'A 

real and earnest life should be ; how innocently 
and actively we should enter into it, and how much 
we need Thy guidance, even when we cannot 
think of Thee. O Lord, how often have we felt 
that we would be more obedient to all Thy com- 
mands ! How often have we said within ourselves, 
" This day, we will not sin ; we will be kind, and 
just, and pa.isnt, and affectionate all day, and lie 
down at night without a regretful memory!" 
But alas ! as the excitements of duty or pleasure 
come upon us, we grow anxious and restless, or 
forgetful and frivolous, and find at the close of 
the day that we are careful and troubled about 
many things, and that we have not yet found 
that "good part" which cannot thus be taken a- 
way from us. Our Heavenly Father, we now 
come to Thee in no confidence in our own strength, 
and pray that Thou wilt help us. Let Thy grace 
be sufficient for us. Come to us many times this 
day, in holy strength and reverent feeling, and 
thus keep us near Thee, even in our forgetful- 
ness. May all that is beautiful remind us of Thee, 
the Infinite Beauty. May all that is lovely remind 
us of Thee, the One altogether lovely. May all 
that is true lead us to Thee, the source of all 
truth. O send us not from Thy presence un- 
blessed; but breathe Thy loving Spirit upon us 
all before we take up the burden of our daily 
duty, that we may go on our way rejoicing, and 
the words of our mouths, and the meditations of 
our hearts, may be acceptable in Thy sight, O, 



552 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. — Altar 
at Home. 

Evening Prayer. — O God, Fountain of life, we 
thank Thee, for Thy good gift of the waters of 
life, through another day. We bless Thee that we 
live and move and have our being in Thee. The 
world presses hard upon us, and we might faint 
and die if we were alone ; but we are not alone, 
for the Father is with us. Not one moment in 
all our life is passed without Thee ; Thou wilt 
never leave us ; no place is without Thee ; Thou 
wilt never forsake us. Thou hast made us for 
life, Thou has: kept us in life. When our last 
night in this world shall close about us, Thy love 
will fold us to sleep, and when we awake in the 
life to come, we shall still be with Thee, for 
in Thy love shall we live forever. Our sun shall 
be turned into darkness, this earth shall pass a- 
way from our sight, the body shall return to the 
dust as it was, but the Sun that lights the sun 
shall shine forever. The Hand in which the earth 
is but a speck of dust abides ; Thou art the same ; 
Thy years shall not fail ; and we are the sons of 
God. Not our will, but Thy will made us ; not 
our will, but Thine has kept us this day. O God, 
our Father, help us to a deeper trust in the life 
everlasting, from the lesson of this one day. 
May we feel that this love which is now, ever 
shall be ; this robe of flesh is Thy gift to Thy 
child, and when it is worn out Thou wilt clothe 
him a^ain ; this work of life is the work Thou 



Wffl WMM 




" Wind ! Wind ! 
The peaceful reel must still go round : 

Wind ! Wind ! 
The thread of life will soon be wound. 



PEA VERS. 553 

hast given us to do, and when it is done, Thou 
wilt give us more ; this love, that makes all our 
life so glad, flows out of the deep fountain of 
God, for God is love, and we shall love forever. 
O, set these lessons deep in our hearts ; help us 
to feel how day after day we see some dim 
shadow of the eternal day that will break upon 
us at the last. May the Gospel of Thy Son, 
the whisper of Thy Spirit, unite to make our 
faith in the life to come more solid and clear ; 
then shall we be glad when Thou shalt call us, 
and enter into Thy glory in Jesus Christ. — Altar 
at Home. 

Prayer before work. — O Eternal God, who hast 
made all things for man and man for Thy glory, 
sanctify my body and soul, my thoughts and my 
intentions, my words and actions, that whatsoever 
I shall think, or speak, or do, may be by me de- 
signed to the glorification of Thy name ; and by 
Thy blessing it may be effective and successful in 
the work of God, according as it can be capable. 

Lord, turn my necessities into virtue ; the works 
of nature into works of grace, by making them 
orderly, regular, temperate, subordinate, and profit- 
able to ends beyond their proper efficacy ; and 
let no pride or self-seeking, no covetousness or 
revenge, no impure mixture or unhandsome pur- 
poses, no little ends and low imaginations, pollute 
my spirit and unhallow any of my words and ac- 
tions ; but let my body be a servant to my spirit, 
and both body and spirit servants of Jesus ; that 



554 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

doing all things for Thy glory here, I may be 
partaker of Thy glory hereafter ; through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. — Jeremy Taylor. 

For Strength. — Gracious Father, keep me now 
through Thy Holy Spirit ; keep my heart soft 
and tender now in health and amidst the bustle 
of the world ; keep the thought of Thyself pres- 
ent to me as my Father in Jesus Christ ; keep 
alive in me a spirit of love and meekness to all 
men, that I may be at once gentle, active and 
firm. 

O strengthen me to bear sickness, or pain, or 
danger, or whatever Thou shalt be pleased to lay 
upon me, as Christ's soldier and servant ; and 
let my faith overcome the world daily. Strengthen 
my faith that I may realize to my mind the 
things eternal, — death, and things after death, and 
Thyself. 

How much of God have I received at God's 
hand, and shall I not also receive evil ? Only, O 
Lord, strengthen me to bear it, whether it visit 
me in body, in mind, or in estate. Strengthen 
me with the grace which Thou didst vouchsafe 
to Thy martyrs, and let me not fall from Thee 
in any trial. 

O Lord, let me cherish a sober mind, to be 
ready to bear evenly, and not sullenly. Reveal 
to me Thyself in Jesus Christ, which knowledge, 
will make all sufferings and all trials easy. — Arnold 
of Rugby. 



PRAYERS. 555 

A Teachers Prayer. — Guide, and strengthen, 
and enkindle me, O Lord, inspire me with zeal, 
and guide me with wisdom, that Thy name may 
be known to those committed to my care, and 
that they may be made and kept always Thine. 

O Lord, save me from idle words, and grant 
that my heart may be truly cleansed and filled 
with Thy Holy Spirit, and that I may arise to 
serve, Thee, and lie down in entire confidence in 
Thee, and submission to Thy will, ready for life 
or for death. Let me live for the day, not over- 
charged with worldly cares, but feeling that my 
treasure is not here. 

What is it to live for God ? May God open 
my eyes to see Him by faith, in and through 
His Son Jesus Christ ; may He draw me to Him, 
and keep me with Him, making His will my will, 
His love my love, His strength my strength : and 
may He make me feel that pretended strength, 
not derived from Him, is no strength, but the 
worst weakness. May His strength be perfected 
in my weakness. — Arnold of Rugby. 

In School. — Give Thy blessing, we pray Thee, 
to this our daily work, that we may do it in faith 
and heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men. 
All our powers of body and mind are Thine, and 
we would fain devote them to Thy service. Sanc- 
tify them and the work in which they are en- 
gaged ; let us not be slothful, but fervent in spir- 
it, and do Thou, O Lord, so bless our efforts 
that they may bring forth in us the fruits of true 



556 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

wisdom. Strengthen the faculties of our minds, 
and dispose us to exert them, but let us always 
remember to exert them for Thy glory, and for 
the furtherance of Thy Kingdom ; and save us 
from all pride, and vanity, and reliance upon our 
own power or wisdom. 

Give us this day Thy Holy Spirit, that we 
may be Thine in body and spirit, in our work 
and in all our refreshment, through Jesus Christ, 
Thy Son, our Lord. — Arnold of Rugby. 

For Submission. — Be present with me, Lord 
Jesus ! in all places, and at all times. May I 
find consolation in being willing to bear the want 
of all human comfort. And if Thy consolation 
also be withdrawn, let Thy will and righteous 
probation of me, be to me as the chiefest com- 
fort ; for " Thou wilt not always chide, neither 
wilt Thou keep Thine anger forever ! " — Thomas 
a Kempis. 

A Prayer for Communion with God. — Merci- 
ful and Eternal God ! Love Inexhaustible ! Fa- 
ther of the Universe! My Father! If I have 
but Thee, all things else, that life may bring, are 
but shadowy phantoms. If I have but Thee, I 
shall find my way through light and darkness. I 
shall find my way and not falter, though want 
and death may threaten me. If I have but Thee, 
I am rich enough, though all that others call riches 
may fail me ; I am sufficiently exalted, though all 
the world look down upon me ; I am strong 
enough, though many conspire against me ; I am 



PRA YERS. 557 

safe, though disasters may befall me, and all my 
worldly possessions may be lost. If I have but 
Thee, death itself cannot rob me of joy, even if 
it should tear from my bleeding heart all the ob- 
jects of my love. Ah, death is Thy angel mes- 
senger ; he carries them to Thee ; and in the 
bosom of Thy love I shall find them again. If I 
have but Thee, I possess all things. — Zschokke. 

O God, show compassion on the wicked. The 
virtuous have already been blessed by Thee, in 
being virtuous: — From The Persian. 

A Prayer when one knows not what to ask 
for. — O Lord, I know not what to ask of Thee. 
Thou alone knowest what I need. If I am Thy 
friend, thou lovest me better than I can love my- 
self. O Lord, give to thy child what is proper, 
whatsoever it may be. I dare not ask for cros- 
ses or comforts. I merely present myself before 
Thee, and open my heart to thee. Look upon my 
wants, of which I am myself ignorant, and deal 
with me according to Thy mercy. Smite me, or 
heal me : depress me, or raise me up, — as seem- 
eth good unto Thee. I adore all thy purposes, 
without knowing them. I give myself up to 
Thee. My only desire is to accomplish Thy will. 
O Lord, teach me how to pray ! Dwell Thou in 
me by Thy Holy Spirit. — Fenelon. 

A Prayer for Resignation when in t?ouble. — O 
my God ! if Thou art pleased to render me 
a spectacle to men and angels, Thy will be done ! 
All I ask is, that Thou wilt be with and save 



558 WEALS OF LIFE. 

those who love Thee ; — so that neither life nor 
death, neither principalities nor powers, may ever 
separate them from the love of God which is in 
Jesus Christ. As for me, what matters it what 
men think of me, or what they make me suffer, 
since they cannot separate me from that Saviour 
whose name is engraven in the very bottom of 
my heart. If I can only be accepted of Him, I 
am w lling that all men should despise and hate 
me. Their strokes will polish what may be defec- 
tive in me, so that I may be presented in peace 
to Him for whom I die daily. O Saviour ! I pre- 
sent myself before Thee an offering, a sacrifice. 
Purify me in Thy blood, that I may be accepted 
of Thee. — Madame Guyon. (In the Bastile.) 

Self- Examination. — Go up, my soul, into the 
tribunal of thy conscience: there set thy guilty 
self before thyself: hide not thyself behind thy- 
self, lest God bring thee forth before thyself. — St. 
Augustine. 

For Entire Devotion. — Bring into captivity ev- 
ery thought to the obedience of Christ. Take 
what I cannot give : my heart, body, thought, time, 
abilities, money, health, strength, nights, days, youth, 
age, and spend them in Thy service, O my eru- 
cified Master, Redeemer, God. O, let not these 
be mere words ! Whom have I in heaven but 
Thee ? and there is none upon earth that I desire 
in comparison of Thee. My heart is athirst for 
God, for the living God. When shall I come and 
appear before God ? — Robertson. 



PEA YEES. 559 

Trust, in view of death. — O Jesus, in Thy rev- 
elation will I live, and in it will I die. Blessed 
is the power of Thy word ; to it the power of 
death must yield. I live in Thee, and I shall not 
die. There is no death, there is no grave ; it 
is but change and glorification. God is no God 
of death ; He is our life. He created life, and 
my spirit is His work. My spirit is life, while 
it animates my body; and remains life when the 
dust which for a time clothed it as a garment, 
and which was to it as an instrument, returns a- 
gain to dust. 

Heavenly and Eternal Father, Source of all 
being, Thou from whom I spring, unto whom I 
shall return — Thine I shall ever be ! Sweet is 
life, in truth, but death has nevertheless no ter- 
rors ; no fear of it shall overwhelm me, shall turn 
me away from Thee, and from the path of virtue. 
I hold as naught the days that I do not adorn 
with good deeds, I hold as naught a life which 
I cannot glorify by virtue. 

And me also, me also, O God, Thou wilt call 
unto Thyself when my hour comes, when my 
earthly goal is reached. Blessed shall I then be 
if I can say unto myself, / have fought a good 
fight ; as far as my powers allowed, I have com- 
pleted a life of well-doing ; the crown of Etei - 
nal life awaits me also. — Zschokke. 



560 IDEALS OF LIFE. 



fxmm* 



There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. — Hebrews IV. 9. 

"SPHERE is a sox\& — the saints in heaven singr it — 
^ Which in this round of toils that never cease, 
Enters the heart, whatever pain may bring it, 
Laden with patience and with blessed peace. 

What soul has heard it not, knows not its losses ; 

Nor can it know the secret of the gain 
Which only comes to men from bearing crosses 

With all their weight of agony and pain. 

The mighty ones and true of all the ages, 

For whose brave lives the world has better grown 

Prophets and prie c ts and holy men and sages, 
The lofty music of that song have known. 

It fills the soul with never-ending praises, 
Which is a more exalted life than prayer; 

For every throb of such existence raises 
The servant of the Lord to purer air. 

And who may tell the strength and consolation, 
Which from a sense of God's unfailing care, 

Flow through the wilderness of our vocation, 
Making it bud and blossom everywhere ? 



PRAISES. 561 

O comrade, loving God, dost thou need wonder 
How in the blessed hush of all complaints, 

In looking back, they lift their voices yonder, 
Thy ways are just and true, Thou King of saints f 

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who 
was, and is, and is to come : heaven and earth 
angels and men, the air and the sea, give glory, 
and honor, and thanks to Him that sitteth on the 
throne, who liveth forever and ever. All the 
blessed spirits and souls of the righteous cast their 
crowns before the throne, worship Him that liveth 
forever and ever. 

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and 
honor, and power, for Thou hast created all things, 
and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. 
Great and marvellous are Thy works, O Lord 
God Almighty : just and true are Thy ways, Thou 
King of saints. Thy wisdom is infinite, Thy mer- 
cies are glorious, and I am not worthy, O Lord, 
to appear in Thy presence, before whom the an- 
gels hide their faces. 

O holy and eternal Jesus, Lamb of God, who 
wert slain from the beginning of the world, Thou 
hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of 
every nation, and hast made us unto our God 
kings and priests, and we shall reign with Thee 
forever. 

Blessing, honor, glory, and power be unto Him 
that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb for- 
ever and ever. — Jeremy Taylor. 



562 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

O Lord God, Fountain of comfort and help, 
of life and peace, of plenty and pardon, who 
fillest heaven with Thy glory, and earth with 
Thy goodness ; we give Thee most humble 
and earnest returns of a glad and thankful heart, 
for the blessings of nature and the blessings of 
grace, for the support of every minute, and the 
gifts of every day. What are we, O Lord, and 
what is our fathers house, that the great God of 
men and angels should multiply upon us the 
proofs of His loving kindness ? Praised be the 
Lord daily, even the Lord that helpeth us and 
poureth His blessings upon us. Blessed be the 
name of His majesty forever, and let all the 
earth be filled with His glory. — Martineau. 

Praise the Lord, O my soul ; and all that 
is within me, praise His holy name. Praise the 
Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His ben- 
efits ; who forgiveth all thy sin, and healeth all 
thine infirmities ; who saveth thy life from de- 
struction, and crowneth thee with mercy and loving 
kindness. — Psalm cm, 1-4. 



PROVERBS. 663 



JVnttatjfa. 



17 HE fruit of old experience, 
"^ The store of golden age — 
The heart of youth may gain from thence 
The wealth of many a sage. 

And it may often fare, a word, 

A homely word and true, 
In thoughtful mood or read or heard, 

Will hint the thing to do. 

Then ponder well the golden store 
Plucked from the veins of Time ; 

Thy life, more grandly than before, 
Will daily grow sublime. 

And what thou ownest give thy neighbor 

At fitting time and place, 
To prosper him in every labor 

And add to thine own grace. 



Knowledge is folly, except grace guide it. 
Punishment is lame, but it comes. 
Better good far off than evil at hand. 
A long tongue is a sign of a short hand. 
The wise head does not all that the foolish 
mouth speaks. 



564 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Man proposeth, God disposeth. 

He begins to die, that quits his desires. 

A handful of good life is better than a bushel of 
learning. 

He that studies his content, wants it. 

Humble hearts have humble desires. 

He that stumbles and falls not, mends his pace. 

The house shows the owner. 

He that gets out of debt, grows rich. 

All is well with him who is beloved of his neigh- 
bors. 

The scalded dog fears cold water. 

Pleasing ware is half sold. 

Light burdens, long borne, grow heavy. 

A cool mouth, and warm feet, live long. 

Not a long day, but a good heart, rids work. 

He pulls with a long rope that waits for another's 
death. 

The Devil is not always at one door. 

When a friend asks, there is no to-morrow. 

He loseth nothing, that loseth not God. 

At dinner my man appears. 

Who gives to all, denies all. 

Benefits please like flowers while they are fresh. 

He that will take a bird, must not scare it. 

A merchant that gains not, loseth. 

Love, and a cough, cannot be hid. 

A dwarf on- a giant's shoulder sees further of the 
two. 

He that sends a fool means to follow him. 

Better the feet slip than the tongue. 



PROVERBS. 565 

Nothing is to be presumed on, or despaired of. 

In a good house all is quickly ready. 

God oft hath a great share in a little house. 

Ill ware is never cheap. 

A cheerful look makes a dish a feast 

Virtue never grows old. 

Were there no fools, bad ware would not pass. 

Never had ill workman good tools. 

Were there no hearers, there would be no back- 
biters. 

Everything is of use to a housekeeper. 

When a dog is drowning, every one offers him 
drink. 

Who is so deaf as he that will not hear ? 

He that is warm thinks all so. 

He that goes barefoot must not plant thorns. 

He that lives well, is learned enough. 

All truths are not to be told. 

Sleep without supping, and wake without owing. 

Mend your clothes, and you may hold on this 
year. 

Deceive not thy physician, confessor, nor lawyer. 

Virtue and a trade are the best portion for child- 
ren. 

He that lives ill, fear follows him. 

To a grateful man give money when he asks. 

Keep good men company, and you shall be of the 
number. 

A snow year a rich year. 

Better to be blind than to see ill. 

Who hath no more bread than need must not 
keep a dog. 



566 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

A garden must be looked unto and dressed as 

the body. 
The fox when he cannot reach the grapes, says 

they are not ripe. 
Though old and wise, yet still advise. 
Slander is a shipwreck by a dry tempest. 
Happy is he that chastens himself. 
Love your neighbor, yet pull not down your hedge. 
A drunkard's purse is a bottle. 
Play with a fool at home, and he will play with 

you in the market. 
The mill cannot grind with the water that's past. 
Corn is cleaned with wind, and the soul with 

chastiseings. 
Good words are worth much, and cost little. 
None is a fool always, every one sometimes. 
God heals, and the physician hath the thanks. 
He that lies long a bed, his estate feels it. 
A diligent scholar, and the master's paid. 
Giving much to the poor doth enrich a man's store. 
Whose house is of glass must not throw stones 

at another. 
He that looks not before finds himself behind. 
He that riseth first is first drest. 
A child's service is little, yet he is no little fool that 

despiseth it. 
The river past, and God forgotten. 
The honey is sweet, but the bee stings. 
In good years corn is hay, in ill years straw is corn. 
Send a wise man on an errand, and say nothing 

unto him. 




.I'll'' 1 ' i i i i i " Ml, ill " 'fl, i, "If," ' » ".,,' ,; 

" There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." 



PROVERBS. 5G7 

The heart's letter is read in the eyes. 

Sometimes the best gain is to lose. 

Truth and oil are ever above. 

The more women look in their glass, the less they 

look to their house. 
It costs more to do ill than to do well. 
Good words quench more than a bucket of water. 
By suppers more have been killed than Galen 

ever cured. 
Gossips are frogs, they drink and talk. 
Prayers and provender hinder no journey. 
The fox knows much, but more he that catcheth 

him. 
Many friends in general, one in special. 
He is a fool that thinks not that another thinks. 
Go not for every grief to the physician, nor for 

every quarrel to the lawyer, nor for every thirst 

to the pot. 
The best mirror is an old friend. 
A man's discontent is his worst evil. 
That is not good language which all understand 

not. 
He is not poor that hath little, but he that de- 

sireth much. 
Although it rain, throw not away thy watering-pot. 
When God will, no wind but brings rain. 
He that sows, trusts in God. 
Who spits against heaven, it falls in his face. 
He that is not handsome at twenty, nor strong 

at thirty, nor rich at forty, nor wise at fifty, 

will never be handsome, strong, rich, or wise. 



568 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

He that doth what he will, doth not what he ought 
He that hath lost his credit is dead to the world. 
All things have their place knew we how to place 

them. 
Little pitchers have wide ears. 
Dry feet, warm head, bring safe to bed. 
He is rich enough that wants nothing. 
One father is enough to govern one hundred sons, 

but not a hundred sons one father. 
He that seeks trouble never misses. 
He that makes a thing too fine breaks it. 
Fly the pleasure that bites to-morrow. 
Where your will is ready your feet are light. 
Building is a sweet impoverishing. 
The first degree of folly is to hold one's self wise 

the second to profess it, the third to despise' 

counsel. 
Poverty is the mother of health. 
A poor beauty finds more lovers than husbands. 
Discreet women have neither eyes nor ears. 
In choosing a wife, and buying a sword, we ought 

not to trust another. 
The filth under the white snow the sun discovers. 
Patience, time, and money accommodate all things. 
For want of a nail the shoe is lost, for want of 

a shoe the horse is lost, for want of a horse 

the rider is lost. 
Gluttony kills more than the sword. 
When children stand quiet they have done some 

ill. 
A penny spared is twice got. 



PROVERBS. 569 

Bear with evil and expect good. 

He that tells a secret is another's servant. 

All things in their being are good for something. 

A fair death honors the whole life. 

Living well is the best revenge. 

A fool may throw a stone into a well, which a 

hundred wise men cannot pull out. 
To a good spender God is the treasurer. 
Music helps not the toothache. 
Help thyself, and God will help thee. 
Love makes all hard hearts gentle. 
The shortest answer is doing. 
He that would have what he hath not should do 

what he doth not. 
He that hath no good trade it is to his loss. 
He that lives not well one year sorrows seven 

after. 
He that is angry at a feast is rude. 
He that mocks a cripple ought to be whole. 
When the tree is fallen all go with their hatchet. 
He that burns most, shines most. 
It is better to be the head of a lizard than the 

tail of a lion. 
Valor that parleys is near yielding. 
There is great force hidden in a sweet command. 
Little dogs start the hare, the great get her. 
A wise man needs not blush for changing his 

purpose. 
Skill and confidence are an unconquered army. 
To be beloved is -above all bargains. 
Love makes one fit for any work. 

37 



570 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Show me a liar, and I will show thee a thief. 
In the husband wisdom, in the wife gentleness. 
A wise man cares not for what he cannot have. 
A holy habit cleanseth not a foul soul. 
Every one is weary, the poor in seeking, the rich 

in keeping, the good in learning. 
Dry bread at home is better than roast meat a- 

broad. 
More have repented speech than silence. 
Beauty draws more than oxen. 
One eye of the master's sees more than ten of 

the servant's. 
When it thunders the thief becomes honest. 
The tree that God plants no wind hurts it. 
He is only bright that shines by himself. 
A valiant man's look is more than a coward's 

sword. 
Three can hold their peace if two be away. 
Be what thou wouldst seem to be. 
He that will not have peace God gives him war. 
Where there is peace God is. 
That's the best gown that goes up and down the 

house. 
The chief disease that reigns this year is folly. 
Better suffer ill than do ill. 
Neither praise nor dispraise thyself, thy actions 

serve the turn. 
Lawsuits consume time, and money, and rest, and 

friends. 
He that hath a wife and children wants not busi- 
ness. 



PROVERBS. 571 

Courtesy on one side only, lasts not long. 

The best of the sport is to do the deed, and say 

nothing. 
You must lose a fly to catch a trout 
That is gold which is worth gold. 
He that knows nothing doubts nothing. 
He that marries late marries ill. 
It is more pain to do nothing than something. 
The wife is the key of the house. 
Life is half spent before we know what it is. 
Years know more than books. 
The dainties of the great are the tears of the 

poor. 
Sins are not known till they be acted. 
All are presumed good till they are found in a 

fault. 
Lawyers' houses are built on the heads of fools. 
The best bred have the best portion. 
Better be a fool than a knave. 
To live peaceably with all breeds good blood. 
Pains to get, care to keep, fear to lose. 
Should God take the sun out of the heaven, yet 

we must have patience. 
When God is made master of a family He orders 

the disorderly. 
He that praiseth himself spattereth himself. 
He that is surprised with the first frost feels it all 

the winter after. 
He a beast doth die that hath done no good to 

his country. 
If the brain sows not corn, it plants thistles. 



572 IDEALS OF LIFE. 

Whatsoever was the father of a disease, an ill 
diet was the mother. 

The war is not done so long as my enemy lives. 

Some evils are cured by contempt. 

Infants' manners are moulded more by the ex- 
ample of parents than by stars at their nativ- 
ities. 

Modesty sets off one newly come to honor. 

Unsound minds, like unsound bodies, if you feed, 
you poison. 

He that steels an egg will steel an ox. 

A city that parleys is half gotten. 

They that hold the greatest farms pay the least 
rent: (applied to rich men that are unthankful 
to God). 

He that hath time and looks for better time, time 
comes that he repents himself of time. 

Of a pig's tail you can never make a good shaft. 

The devil divides the world between atheism and 
superstition. 

We do it soon enough, if that we do be well. 

God gives His wrath by weight, and without weight 
His mercy. 

We must recoil a little, to the end we may leap 
the better. 

No day so clear but hath dark clouds. 

No hare so small but hath his shadow. 

The healthful man can give counsel to the sick. 

Virtue flies from the heart of a mercenary man. 

Say to pleasure, Gentle Eve, I will none of your 
apple. 



PRO VERBS. 573 

There is a remedy for everything, could men 

find it. 
Great fortune brings with it great misfortune. 
A fair day in winter is the mother of a storm. 
Tithe, and be rich. 

Stay awhile that we may make an end the sooner. 
Great deservers grow intolerable presumers. 
The love of money and the love of learning rarely 

meet. 
Trust no friend with that you need, fear him as 

if he were your enemy. 
The devil never assails a man except he find him 

either void of knowledge, or of the fear of God. 
Much money makes a country poor, for it sets a 

dearer price on everything. 
The virtue of a coward is suspicion. 
Every man's censure is first moulded in his own 

nature. 
What ever is made by the hand of man, by the 

hand of man may be over-turned. 
Sweet discourse makes short days and nights. 
In a long journey straw weighs. 
He that serves well need not ask his wages. 
If a good man thrive, all thrive with him. 
Pardon all but thyself. 
The thread breaks where it is weakest. 
If a staff be crooked, the shadow cannot be straight. 
The goat must browse where she is tied. 
Talking pays no toll. 

Where your will is ready your feet are light. 
He that respects not is not respected. 



574 



IDEALS OF LIFE. 



He that measures not himself is measured. 
He that speaks sows, and he that holds his peace 

gathers. 
The tongue talks at the head's cost. 
A mountain and a river are good neighbors. 
Think of ease, but work on. 
One stroke fells not an oak. 
Ill comes in by ells, and goes out by inches. 
Hearken to reason, or she will be heard. 
Praise day and night, and life at the end. 
Le^rn weeping, and thou shalt laugh gaining. 
Better spare to have of thine own than ask of 

other men. 
He that looks not before finds himself behind. 
Good service is a great enchantment. 
Love is the true price of love. — George Herbert. 




INDEX OF AUTHORS. 



[The Author and Editor would here acknowledge the courtesy of those 
Authors and Publishers who have so kindly allowed him to draw from their 
copyrighted works : among whom he would especially mention Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, Dr. C. S. Henry, E. P. Dutton & Co., and Mr. James Miller.] 

A 

Adams, W. H. Davenport, contemporary English writer, 

author of The Secret of Success, etc. — 16, 37, 42, 55, 131, 

144, 183, 202, 448. 
Addison, Joseph, (1672-1719), chiefly known as the author of 

famous papers in The Spectator— -78, 79, 87, 112, 132, 133, 

139, 153, 179, 201, 223, 284, 320, 330, 384, 416, 436, 438, 

450, 490, 513, 514. 
Allston, Washington, (1779-1843), an American historical 

painter, distinguished for excellence in coloring — 402, 

469. 
Andrews, Lancelot, (1555-1626), an English bishop, "the 

ointment of whose name is sweeter than spices " — 292, 

545. 

Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, (87-161), Roman Emperor 

and philosopher — 444, 457. 
Arnold, Thomas, (1795-1842), an English divine and 

scholar, best known as the Master of Rugby School ; 

the story of whose life has been written by Dean 

Stanley— 554, 555. 
(575) 



576 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Ascham, Roger, (1515-1568), a scholar and writer of great 
repute in his day, author of The School- Master — 163. 

Atterbury, Francis, (1662-1732), distinguished in the ec- 
clesiastical and literaiy history of England — 83, 87, 136, 
289, 439. 

Auerbach, Berthold, (1812 ), a popular German author 

—28. 

Augustine, Saint, (354-430), the most celebrated of the 
Christian Fathers, author of - Confessions, etc. — 23, 149, 
439, 558. 

B 

Bacon, Francis, (1561-1626), author of the Novum 'Organum. 

which marked a new departure in philosophy — 9, 109. 

456, 513. 
Balguy, John, (1686-1748), an eminent English divine 

—514. 

Barrow, Isaac, (1630-1677), a distinguished mathematician 
and divine of England— 28, 154. 

Baxter, Richard, (1615-1691), a famous Nonconformist 

—355. 
Bayne, Peter, a contemporary Scotch essayist — 261. 
Bartholin, Kaspar, (1585-1630), a Danish writer — 168. 
Beattie, James, (1735-1922), a Scotch poet and moralist, 

author of Essay on Truth, The Ministrel, etc. — 286, 409. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, (1813 ), 337. 

Ben Azai ; Israelite 501. 

Bentham, Jeremy, (1748-1832), author of Principles of Morals 
and Legislation, etc. — 419. 

Bently, Richard, (1662-1742), one of the most eminent 
critics of modern times — 332. 

Bias, (about 570 Tt C), one of the seven sages of Greece 
—466. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 577 

Blair, Hugh, (1718-1800), a distinguished clergyman of 

the Church of Scotland— 328, 418. 
Boswell, James, (1740-1822), friend and biographer of Dr. 

Samuel Johnson— 129, 138. 
Boyle, Robert, (1626-1691), distinguished in Natural Science 

—199. 
Brande, Wm. T., (1788-1866), long associated with Sir 

Humphry Davy — 490. 
Bremer, Frederika, (1802-1865), a well-known Swedish 

novelist— 397. 
Brewster, Sir David, (1781-1868), a distinguished Scotch 

philosopher and eloquent writer — 330. 

Bronte, Charlotte, 1816-1855), among the most disting- 
uished of modern novelists, author of Jane Eyre etc. 
—360, 375. 

Brooke, Stopford A., contemporary English author and 
divine— 39, 255, 316, 393, 519. 

Brooks, Philipps, a celebrated American preacher — 239, 
246, 269, 302. 

Brougham, Lord, (1778-1868), an orator and writer of 
singularly versatile power — 157* 

Browne, Sir Thomas, (1605-1682), author of Religio Medici, 
a famous work which appeared in 1642 — 93, 99, 150, 
303, 321, 360, 363, 452. 

Brown, J. Baldwin, a contemporary English author and 
divine— 82, 101, 377. 

Brown, John, M. D., author of Rabb and his Friends — 192. 

Brown, Dr. Thomas, (1778-1820), a Scotch metaphysician 
—499. 

Burke, Edmund, (1730-1797), a noted writer, orator, and 
statesman of Irish birth, among the first of his age — 
55, 78, 113, 123, 124, 181, 236, 284, 346, 368, 436, 458. 



578 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Bubritt, Elihu, (1811-1879), a distinguished American, 
known as the Learned Blacksmith — 161. 

Burton, Robert, (1576-1639), chiefly known as the author 
of Anatomy of Melancholy — 29. 

C 

Calvert, an American contemporary essayist — 138, 461. 

Caelyle, Thomas, (1795 ), a writer whom Chambers 

calls, not unfittingly, a literary Columbus — 17, 23, 26, 30, 
31, 32, 76, 170, 179, 199, 252, 275, 338, 343, 346, 347, 
353, 366, 369, 384, 412, 415, 440, 480, 501, 504. 

Clarendon, Earl of— 304. 

Chalmers, Thomas, (1780-1847), a Scotch divine of great 
genius, of marvellous efficiency among the poor — 92, 
162, 279, 343. 

Channing, William Ellery, (1780-1842), an American of 
rare genius, in his own words, ' ; aloof from all but those 
who strive and pray for clearer light" — 52, 91, 114, 163, 
471, 526, 549. 

Charnock, Stephen, (1628-1680), a distinguished Noncon- 
formist, whose "works are full of force and originality" 
—70, 92. 

Chateaubbiand, (1769-1848), an eminent French writer, 
author of Les Martyrs, etc — 162. 

Chestebfield, Eabl of, (1694-1773), best known as author 
of Letters to his Son — 124, 505. 

Child, Lydia Maeia, (1802 ), an eminent American 

authoress, well-known for two generations — 349, 372. 

Cicebo, Mabcus Tullius, (105-42 B. C), the most famous 
of Roman orators and philosophers — 168, 322, 329, 501, 
509. 

Cobbett, William, (1762-1835), a celebrated English polit- 
ical reformer — 439. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 579 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, (1772-1834), "the most im- 
aginative of modern poets," and the Socrates of his day 
in philosophy— 9, 75, 156, 347, 364, 488. 

Collier, Jeremy, (1650-1726), a learned English Nonjuror 
of great distinction — 19, 185. 

Colonna, Vittoria, (1490-1547), the most celebrated poetess 
of Italy— 26. 

Colton, Charles Caleb, (1780-1832), an English writer, 
best known as the author of Lacon — 48, 107, 146, 156, 
289, 311, 399, 531. 

Confucius, (about 550 B. C), the greatest Chinese sage and 
religious lawgiver — 457 . 

Coverdale, Miles, (1483-1568), an English prelate, associ- 
ated with Tyndale in the translation of the Bible — 93. 

Cowper, William, (1731-1800), who "restored the poetic 
art to England "—279. 

Craik, George Lillie, (1799-1866), a Scotchman by birth, 
best known as the author of Pursuit of Knowledge under 
Difficulties— 172. 

Chrysostom, Saint John (347-407), the most eloquent of 
the Greek Fathers— 467. 

D 

Davy, Sir Humphry, (1778-1829), the great English chem- 
ist whose fame extends to all countries — 322, 412. 

De Bury, Richard, born 1281, the most learned English- 
man of his day, author of the Love of Books — 169. 

De Tocqueville, (1805-1859), a French author, the most 
eminent writer of his age on the science of politics — 26. 

Dewey, Orville, a contemporary American writer — 523. 

Dick, Thomas, (1774-1857), a distinguished Scotchman, 
well known as author of The Christian Philosopher, etc. 
—323, 329. 



580 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Dickens, Chaeles, (1812-1870), the quaint and pathetic 

English novelist— 191, 312, 347. 
Donne, John, (1573-1631 \ one of the most famous of the 

old English divines— 28, 309. 

Dryden, John, (1631-1700), distinguished as a poet, and 
master also of what he calls " that other harmony of 
prose "—332 

Dyer, John, (1700-1758), among the British Poets— 356. 

E 
Earl, John, (1601-1665), author of Microcosmography — 195, 506. 
Edgeworth, Maria, (1767-1849), a writer of Irish birth, 
noted as a novelist — 459. 

Editor, matter from whose pen is marked with a dash — 
11, 18, 24, 27, 30, 32, 42, 45, 47, 51, 57, 63, 69, 74, 77, 
80, 85, 91, 94, 100, 103, 105, 108, 111, 114, 116, 119, 
125, 130, 133, 137, 140, 148, 153, 160, 165, 171, 178, 182, 
185, 189, 190, 193, 197, 201, 206, 211, 220, 225, 233, 238, 
245, 250, 255, 258, 260, 262, 268, 276, 278, 282, 288, 291, 
296, 300, 306, 317, 326, 333, 337, 342, 345, 348, 352, 358, 
362, 365, 368, 371, 376, 385, 390, 398, 400, 404, 406, 408, 
414, 420, 425, 431, 435, 441, 445, 453, 460, 464, 468, 469, 
470, 474, 479 482, 486, 489, 494, 496, 499, 505, 510, 513, 
517, 521, 525, 528, 533, 535, 539, 544, 560, 563. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, (1803 ), of whom a writer in 

Blackwood's Magazine says : " a more independent and 
original thinker can no where in this age be found " 
—29, 90, 198, 335, 346, 437, 452, 501, 522. 

Epictetus, celebrated Stoic philosopher, first century of the 
Christian Era— 397. 

Epicurus, (about 340-270, B. C), father of the Epicurian 
Philosophy — 3 1 2 . 

Erasmus, Desiderius, (1467-1536), earliest editor of the 
Greek Testament, and a prominent factor in the Re- 
formation — 399. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 531 

Erskixk. Lord, (1750 ?-1823), a distinguished Scotchman 

—324. 

F 
Felltham, Owen, a quaint writer of the 17th century — 

122, 312. 
Fenelon, (1651-1715), Archbishop of Cambrai, loved and 

honored wherever known — 104, 398, 557. 
Ferguson, James, (1710-1776), a Scotch scientist— 176. 
Ficiite, (1762-1814), a German philosopher, " whose life 

stirs one like a trumpet " — 504. 
Foster, John, (1770-1843), English essayist, best known 

as author of Decision of Character — 130, 157, 331, 456, 

492. 
Fox, Charles James, (1749-1806), an English author and 

statesman — 237. 
Francis, Dr. S. W., (1789-1861) —343. 
Franklin, Benjamin, (1706-1790), the famous American 

philosopher and statesman — 71, 123, 147, 435, 515. 
Frothingham, N. L., (1793-1870), an American divine and 

poet— 105. 
Frothingham, O. B., American contemporary writer — 29. 

Froude, James Anthony, (1818 ), author of History of 

England, etc. — 443. 
Fuller. Thomas, (1608-1661), author of The Worthies of 

England, etc.— 90, 168, 259, 268, 269, 355. 

G 

Gladstone, W. E. (1809 ), English Prime Minister 

—146. 
Gibbon, Edward, (1737-1794), author of The Decline and 

Fall— 152, 170. 

Goethe, (1749-1832), the prince of German poets — 316, 
414, 452, 488. 



582 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, (1728-1774), best known as author of 

The Deserted Village, and The Vicar of Wakefield — 48. 
Greenwell, Dora, an English woman, author of Life of 

Lacordaire, etc. 23, 74, 85, 318, 339J 359, 387, 487. 
Gregory Nazianzen, (329-389), one of the Greek Fathers 

—466. 
Gregory of Nyssa, (332-394), most learned of the Greek 

Fathers— 335. 
Griffeth, an Englishman, author of Behind the Veil — 97. 
Guyon, Madame, (1648-1717), celebrated for her devotional 

writings and spiritual songs — 557. 

H 

Halford, Sir Henry, (1766-1844), an eminent English 

Physician— 308. 
Hall, Joseph, (1754-1656), English bishop— 205, 349, 545. 
Hall, Robert, (1764-1831), celebrated English dissenter 

—86, 229, 238, 267, 289, 325, 404, 407, 531. 

Hamilton, Dr. James, author of Life in Earnest — 192. 

Hamilton, Sir William, (1780-1855), the most learned 
philosopher of the Scottish School — 223. 

Hamerton, P. G., author of Intellectual Life— 230. 

Hammond, Henry, (1605-1660), a learned English divine 

—72, 266, 364. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, (1804-1864), an eminent American 

author, of marvellous facination — 220, 336. 

Hare Brothers, A. W. & J. C, authors of Guesses at Truth 
—152. 

Heber, Reginald, (1783-1826), missionary bishop of Cal- 
cutta, and author of many sacred lyrics — 374. 

Helps, Sir Arthur, (1811-1873), an English writer of great 
value, "the most delightful essayist since Lamb and 
Hunt" — 152, 192, 267, 415, 421, 425. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 583 

Henry, C. S., an American writer distinguished in philoso- 
phy and general literature— 14, 25, 190, 432, 468, 510. 

Herbert, George, (1593-1632), an English divine and 
poet, mainly known as author of The Temple, which, 
says Emerson, ought to be among a young man's first 
reading in English literature — 90, 384, 563. 

Herbert, Lord, (1810-1861),— 280. 

Herder. (1744-1803), German scholar, divine, and poet 
—411. 

Hkracutus, (about 500 or B. C), a Greek philosopher — 336. 

Herrick, Robert, (1591-1662?), a quaint and eminent 
English poet — 84. 

Herschel, Sir John, only son of the astronomer Sir 
William— 168. 

Homer, (about 850 B. C), the greatest of Epic poets — 431. 

Hobbes, Thomas, (1588-1679), an English writer on social 
science — 355. 

Hood, Thomas, (1798-1845), an eminent English poet and 
humorist — 152. 

Holland, Dr. J. G., (1819 ), American poet, essayist, 

and novelist — 495. 

Hooker, Richard, (1554-1600), author of Ecclesiastical Polity, 
etc.— 312, 367, 450, 463. 

Hopkins, John Henry, (1792-1868), first Bishop of the 
Diocese of Vt — 290. 

Horace, (born 65 B. C.) the famous Roman satirist and 
lyrist— 438. 

Horne, George, (1730-1792), author of Commentary on the 
Psalms— 444, 497. 

Hoadley, Benj., (1676-1761), English prelate— 279. 

Howitt, Mary, a genial story- writer and poetess— 208. 

Humboldt, Baron Von (1769-1859), one of the greatest of 
naturalist and travellers — 370, 398. 



584 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Houghton, Lord — 232. 

Hunt, Leigh, (1784-1859), an English poet and essayist 

—419. 
Howell, James, (1594-1666), author of Familiar Letters 

—414, 459. 

I 
Irving, Washington, (1783-1859), among the first to give 
American literature a standing abroad — 152, 196, 311, 
491. 

J 

Jacobi, Friederich Heinrich, (1743-1819), a distinguished 
German writer of romance and philosophical treatises. 
—28, 384, 411. 

Jameson, Mrs. Anna, (1797-1860), an English .authoress, 

celebrated as an art-critic — 24. 
Jerome, Saint, (345 ?-420), the most learned of the Latin 

Fathers, translator of the Scriptures into the Latin 

—109. 

Jerrold, Douglas, (1803-1858), a miscellaneous writer, at 

one time connected with Punch — 441. 
Johnson, Samuel, (1708-1784), a versatile author of great 

power, whose life, written by Boswell, is better than 

the best of novels — 48, 52, 78, 83, 122, 188, 189, 199, 

222, 310, 401, 458, 498, 530. 

Jonson, Ben, • (1574-1637), a dramatic writer, contemporary 
with Shakespeare, to whom alone he was second — 364. 
444. 

Judson, L. C, an American lawyer — 46. 

K 

Kant, Emanuel, (1724-1804), the greatest of German meta- 
physicians — 24. - 

Kean, Edmund, (1787-1833), an English actor— 49.- 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 585 

Kett, Henry, (1761-1825), Bampton Lecturer 1690—310. 

Kixgsley, Charles, (1818-1875), an English divine, poet, 
and prose-writer, of great originality and freshness 
—9, 167, 232, 316, 378, 461, 480, 482. 

King, Thomas Starr, (1824-1864), an American clergy- 
man and Lecturer — 336. 

L 

Lactantius (250-323) one of the Christian fathers — 397, 
467. 

Landon, L. E, (1802-1839), an English poetess— 402. 

Landor, Walter Savage, (1775-1864), an English poet 
and prose-writer — 345. 

Laplace, Pierre Simon, (1739-1827), a French mathemati- 
cian and astronomer of great celebrity — 503. 

Lavater, Johann Kaspar, (1741-1801), a German poet and 
physiognomist — 530. 

Law, William, (1686-1761), author of the Serious Call, etc. 
—72, 316, 405. 

Ledyard, John, (1751-1789), American traveller — 219.' 
Leighton, Robert, (1611-1685), Archbishop of Glasgow 
— venerabile nomen — 356, 452, 488. 

Leopold, a German author — 28. 

L'Estrange, Robert, (1616-1704), an English political writer 
—452. 

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, (1729-1781), an illustrious 
German writer, author of Nathan der Weise, etc. — 116. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, (1807 ), the most 

eminent of American poets — 104, 450. 

Luther, Martin, (1483-1546), the Reformer, whose words, 
says Richter, were half-battles— 375, 419, 480, 498. 

Locke, John, (1632-1704), best known as author of the 
. Essay, on the Understanding— 2S0, 254, 456, 509. 



586 INDEX OF A UTHORS. 

M 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, (1800-1859), English poet, 
essayist, and historian — 157, 491. 

Mann, Horace, (1796-1859), a distinguished American Edu- 
cationist— 223, 250, 253, 407. 

Martial, the famous author of Epigrammata, first century 
of Christian Era — 375. 

Martineau, James, (1807 ), an English divine and 

essayist— 23, 104, 304. 

May, Samuel Joseph, (1797-1871), an American divine 
and writer, "great in moral qualities of the rarest kind" 
—437, 504. 

Melvtll, Henry, (1798-1871), an eloquent English divine 
—356, 399. 

Menander, a Greek poet, (born 342 B. C), author of many 

popular comedies — 397. 
Mencius, (about 313 B. C), a Chinese sage— 104, 397. 

Miller, Hugh, (1802-1856), the distinguished Scotch geo- 
logist— 413. 

Milton, John, (1608-1674), whose prose is as vigorous as 
his verse— 93, 167, 384, 455. 

Mohammed, (570-632), founder of Mohammedanism — 84. 

Montaigne, (1533-1592), the famous French essayist — 72, 
221, 370, 508. 

Montholon, (1782 — 1853), author of Memoirs of Napoleon I., 

etc.— 220. 

More, Hannah, (1745-1833), an English didactic writer 
—361. 

Mountford, William, American contemporary — 337. 
Murphy, John, an English contemporary divine, author of 
Scientific Bases of Faith — 328. 



ISDEX OF AUTHORS. 587 

N 
Napoleon I., (1769-1821)— 128. 
Norton, Caroline E., (1808 ), poetess and novelist — 209. 

P 

Paley, William, (1743-1805), author of Natural Theology, 

Horae Pmdinae, etc. — 29, 136. 
Palgrave, T. F., an English poet— 232. 
Parker, Theodore, (1819-1860;, the boldest of the New 

England Transcendentalists — 541. 
Pascal, Blaise, (1623-1662), a celebrated French Thinker, 

whose Thoughts are published in many tongues — 75, 

313. 

Perthes, Caroline, wife of Friederich— 188. 

Perthes, Friederich, (1772-1843), a famous German book- 
seller— 135, 419. 

Petrarch, (1304-1374), the great lyric poet of Italy — 166. 

Playfair, John, (1748-1819), a Scotch natural philosopher 
and mathematician — 413. 

Plato, (429-348 B. C), founder of the Platonic School of 
Philosophy— 334, 437, 466, 507. 

Plutarch, a Greek biographer and philosopher, first cen- 
tury of the Christian Era — 336. 

Pope, Alexander, (1688-1744), the greatest poet of his 
time— 280. 

Price, Dr., an English divine of the last century — 106. 
Pythagoras, (500-404 B. C), founder of a school of Greek 
philosophy — 90, 457. 

Q 

Quintillian, a Roman rhetorician of the first century 
—397. 



588 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

R 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, (1552-1618), " unquestionably one 
of the most splendid figures in a time unusually pro- 
lific of splendid developments of humanity " — 361. 

Ray, John, (1628-1705), an eminent naturalist — 254. 

Richardson, Samuel, (1689-1761), author of Clarissa — 125. 

Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich, (1763-1825), the .prose- 
poet of Germany— 28, 90, 198, 280, 337, 344, 356, 370, 
467.. 

Robertson, Frederick William, (1816-1853), a famous 
English clergyman — 73, 232, 286, 292. 297, 300, 306, 
316, 353, 389, 453, 463, 532, 558. 

Rochefoucauld, (1613-1680;, a celebrated French writer, 
author of Reflections, etc. — 199. 

Ruskin, John, (1819 ), the most eloquent and original 

of art critics— 41, 163, 410, 458. 

S 
Saint John, J. A. author of Philosophy at the foot of the 

Cross— 305. 
Saint-Simon, (1760-1825), a French social philosopher — 16. 
Scheffer, Ary, (1795-1858), a French painter — 128. 
Schiller, German poet and historian — 456. 

Scott, Dr. Thomas, (1747-1821), author of Bible Commentary 

—509. 
Scott, Sir Walter, (1717-1832), an eminent Scotch poet 

and novelist — 135, 187. 
Selden, John, (1584-1654), an English lawyer and author 

— 508. 

Seneca, a distinguished Roman Stoic, born a few years B. 

C— 124, 312. 
Sewell, Miss, author of Thoughts for Holy Week — 296. 
Siiaftsbury, Earl of, (1621-1683),— 413. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 589 

Shairp, J. C, a Scotch professor — 341. 

Shakespeare, William, (1564-1616), greatest of dramatic 

poets — 1. 
Shenstone, William, (1714-1763), an English poet. 
Sherlock, William, (1641-1704), an English divine — 324. 
Shuttleworth, Philip N., (1782-1842), an English bishop 

—509, 305. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, (1554-1586), an English author and 

model gentleman— 136, 181, 199. 

Smiles, Samuel, a suggestive and helpful English writer, 
author of Self-Help, Character, etc. — 11, 25, 49, 59, 64, 
119, 127, 134, 136, 169, 212, 226, 262, 350, 419, 446. 

Smith, Adam, (1723-1790), author of Wealth of Nations 
—332. 

Smith, Sidney, (1771-1845), an English divine celebrated 
for wit and wisdom— 36, 58, 83. 123, 126, 138, 152, 232. 

Socrates, (469-399 B. C), the greatest of philosophers— 29, 
305, 325, 437. 

South, Robert, (1633-1716), an English divine of great 
learning— 90, 113, 125, 136, 199, 254, 356, 405, 437, 459, 
513, 530. 

Southey, Robert, (1774-1843), an English poet and prose- 
writer— 307, 344, 463, 402. 

Sprat, Thomas, (1636-1713), an English prelate, "to whose 
talents, " says Macaulay, " posterity has scarcely done 
justice"— 83, 185, 407. 

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, the present Dean of Westmin- 
ster— 162. 

Stanley, Lord, sometime Lord-Rector of Glasgow Univer- 
sity— 186. 

Steele, Sir Richard, (1671-1729), author of papers in the 
Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian — 122, 200, 205. 



590 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

Stephen, Sir James, (1789-1859), author of Essays in Ec- 
clesiastical Biography — 79. 

Sterne, Laurence, (1713-1768), an English divine, most 
widely known as author of Tristram Shandy — 280, 400, 
516. 

Stewart, Dugald, (1753-1828), a Scotch philosopher — 139, 
182, 489. 

Swedenborg, Emanuel, (1688-1772), a Swedish philosopher 
and religious writer — 104. 

Swift, Jonathan, (1667-1745), Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, 
poet and satirist, author of several famous books, a- 
mong which are Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels 
—9, 137, 147, 275, 311, 513. 

T 

Taylor, Jeremy, (1613-1667), an English prelate, best 
known as author of Holy Living and Dying — 72, 206, 
254, 266 ; 284, 307, 408, 439, 553. 

Taylor, Sir Henry, English poet and essayist — 205. 
Temple, Sir William, (1628-1699), an English statesman 
and author— 222, 436, 504. 

Tennyson, Alfred, (1810 ), the English Laureate — 232. 

Terence, (195-159 B. C), a Roman comic poet — 397. 
Thales, (about 636-546 B. C), a Greek philosopher, and 

one of the seven wise men — 435, 436. 
Thomas of Malmesbury — 530. 
Thomas a Kempis, (born 1300), author The Imitation of 

Christ, one of the most famous books of the world — 

103, 467, 504, 556. 

Tillotson, John, (1630-1694), an English prelate and pulpit 
orator— 47, 87, 113. 254, 275, 444, 458. 

Trench, Richard Chenevix, (1807 ), Archbishop of 

Dublin, and a distinguished scholar and author — 465, 
501, 512. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 591 

W 

Wake, William, (1672-1736), Archbishop of Canterbury 
—82, 375. 

Walpole, Horace, (1717-1797), an English Statesmen— 137. 

Walton, Izaak. (1593-1683), author of the Complete Angler 

and several quaint biographies — 113. 
Watson, Richard, (1737-1816), an English prelate — 458. 

Watts, Isaac, (1674-1748), the celebrated author of Hymns 
—498. 

Webster, Daniel, (1782-1852), an American statesman, 
and perhaps the most eminent of modern orators. — 160, 
398. 

Whately, Richard, (1787-1863), Archbishop of Dublin, 
and author of many valuable works — 124, 154, 210, 
276, 280, 459. 

Whipple, H. B., (1819 ), Bishop of Minnesota— 362. 

Williams, Isaac, (1802-1865), author of The Cathedral, etc. 

—282. 

Wilson, Thomas, (1663-1755), an English bishop, distin- 
guished for Apostolic piety and unquenchable zeal in 
good works — 419, 545. 

Wilson, Prof. John, (1785-1854), the Christopher North 
of Blachvood's Magazine — 357. 

Woolman, John, (1720-1772), an eminent philanthropist 
of the Society of Friends — 239. 

Wordsworth, William (1770-1850), one of the most emin- 
ent of the English poets— 351, 493. 

Wesley, Susannah, the mother of John — 209. 

Wogan, William, an English author of the last century 
—357. 



592 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

z 

Zimmeemann, Johann Geoeg, (1728-1795), an eminent 
Swiss physician and author — 122, 516. 

Zschokke, J. H. D., born 1771, a German by birth, author 
of Meditations on Death and Eternity, etc. — 556, 559. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



A 

Action. — Editor, South, Lavater, Thomas of Malmes- 
bury, Johnson, Colton, Robertson 528 

Affliction. — Editor, Smiles, Jeremy Taylor, Hammond, 

Helps, Robert Hall 262 

Ambition. — Editor, Addison, Burke, Sidney, Stewart . 178 

Appreciation. — Editor, Henry, Allston 468 

B 

Books. — ^Editor, Petrarch, Milton, Kingsley, Herschel, 
Cicero, Thomas Fuller, Bartholin. Richard De Bury, 
Smiles, Gibbon, Carlyle 165 

Brotherhood. — Editor, Brooke, Menander, Terence, 
Epictetus, Quintillian, Mencius, Lactantius, Freder- 
ika Bremer, Fenelon, Humboldt 390 

But One Physician. — Editor, Kingsley, Calvert, Southey, 

Hooker, Robertson 460 

C 

Character. — Editor, Smiles, Perthes, Sir Walter Scott, 

Atterbury, Sidney, South, Paley, Swift .... 133 

Charity. — Editor, J. Baldwin Brown, Wake, Atterbury, 

Sprat, Johnson, Sidney Smith, Mohammed, Herrick 80 



594 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

Cheerfulness. — Editor, Carlyle, Helps, Addison, Blair, 
Smiles, Bentham, Leigh Hunt, Bishop Wilson, 

Luther, Perthes 414 

Childhood. — Editor, Earle, Irving 193 

Children. — Editor, Mary Howitt, Mrs. Norton, Mrs. 

Wesley, Whately 206 

Cold-Water Pourers. — Editor, Helps 422 

Common Sense. — Editor, Walpole, Sidney Smith, Calvert, 

Boswell, Addison, Stewart 137 

Competition. — Editor, Helps 420 

Concentration. — Editor, Adams, Anon 42 

Confusion. — Editor, Kingsley 482 

Conscience. — Editor, Addison, Burke, Walton, South, 

Tillotson Ill 

Contentment. — Editor, Balguy, Addison, Franklin, 

Sterne, Zimmermann 513 

Conversion. — Editor, Greenwell, Goethe, Coleridge, 

' Leigh ton . . . . . . . 486 

Courage. — Editor, Sidney Smith, Smiles, Scheffer, 

Napoleon I., Boswell 125 

Courtesy. — Editor, Smiles, Johnson, Zimmermann, 
Steele, Felltham, Sidney Smith, Burke, Franklin, 
Seneca, Chesterfield, Whately, Richardson, South, 119 

D 

Death. — Editor, Robertson, Jeremy Taylor, Southey, 
Halford,, Donne, Household Words, Kett, Johnson, 

Irving, Swift, Colton, Dickens, Pascal 306 

Decision. — Editor, Foster, Adams, Addison .... 130 

Detraction. — Editor, Henry 431 

Duty. — Editor, Kant, Jameson, Smiles, Henry, Colonna, 

Carlyle, De Tocqueville . . . — ... . . . 24 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 595 

Devotion. — Editor, Smiles, Adams, Addison, Long- 
fellow, Hooker 445 



E 

Economy. — Editor, Johnson, Channing, Burke, Adams 51 
Education. — Editor, Addison, Barrow, Whately, Coler- 
idge, Col ton, Foster, Macaulay, Daniel Webster . 153 

Eloquence. — Editor, Colton, Melvill, Sterne .... 398 

Employment. — Editor, Lord Stanley, Sir Walter Scott, 

Caroline Perthes, Johnson 185 

Encouragement. — Editor, Ferguson, Craik 171 

Eternity. — Editor, St. Augustine, Sir Thomas Browne 148 

Evil-Eyed.— Editor 469 

.... F 

Failures and Successes.— Editor, Smiles . . . . .63 

Faith. — Editor, Green well, Pascal, Coleridge, Carlyle . 74 

Fame. — Editor, Johnson, Allston, Landon ...... 440 

Fate. — Editor, Emerson, Dewey '...-.' . .... . 521 

Food for the Soul. — Editor, Brooks 245 

Forgiveness. — Editor, Cowper, Chalmers, Hoadly, Lord 

Herbert, Pope, Sterne, Richter, Whately .... 278 

Forsaken, — Editor, Sewell, Andrews, Robertson . . 291 
Freedom. — Editor, Channing . ... 525 

G 
Gilead.— Editor, Bayne 260 

God. — Editor, Channing, Chalmers, Charnock, Coverdale, 

' Sir Thomas Browne, Milton 91 

Goodness. — Editor, Lord Bacon, St. Jerome .... 108 
Greatness. — Editor, Channing ......... 470 



596 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

H 

Health. — Editor, Montaigne, Johnson, Temple, Addison, 

Sir William Hamilton, Mann 220 

Heaven. — Editor, Green well, Sir Thomas Browne, 

Charlotte Bronte, Hannah More, Sir Walter Raleigh 358 
Hell. — Editor, Bishop Whipple, Sir Thomas Browne, 

Coleridge, Hammond, Ben. Jonson 362 

Home. — Editor, Dickens, Dr. John Brown, Dr. James 

Hamilton, Sir Arthur Helps 1U0 

Honesty. — Editor, Douglas Jerrold, Froude, Bishop 

Home, Ben. Jonson, Antoninus 441 

Hope. — Editor, Addison, Burke, Johnson, Jeremy 

Collier, Stephen 77 

I 

Imagination. — Editor, Stewart, Addison, Brande, Irving, 

Macaulay, Foster, Southey, Wordsworth .... 489 

Immanuel. — Editor, J. Baldwin Brown 100 

Immortality. — Editor, Greenwell, Addison, Sir Thomas 
Browne, Cicero, Davy, Dick, Erskine, Sherlock, 
Socrates, Robert Hall 317 

In One. — Editor, J. Baldwin Brown, Kingsley . . . 376 

L 

Labor and Greatness. — Editor, Sidney Smith, Smiles 57 
Learning. — Editor. Chesterfield, Earle, Montaigne, Dr. 

Thomas Scott, Selden, Locke, Shenstone .... 505 

Life. — Editor, Mrs. Child, Charlotte Bronte, Martial, 

Wake, Luther . 371 

Life Work.— Editor, Sidney Smith, Adams, Brooke, 

Ruskin 32 

Life's Completion. — Editor, Robertson, Brooks, Sir 
Thomas Browne, Clarendon, Martineau, J. A. St. 
John, Socrates, Shuttleworth 300 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 5 97 

M 
Money. — Editor, Henry, Addison, Bacon, South, Swift 510 
Music. — Editor, Carlyle, Luther, Kingsley 479 

N 
Nature. — Editor, Beattie, Ruskin, Jacobi, Herder, 
Carlyle, Davy, Hugh Miller, Shaftesbury, Playfair, 
Howell, Goethe 408 



Opportunities. — Editor, Adams, Collier, Sprat . . . 182 
Originality. — Editor, Anon 474 

P 

Patience. — Editor, Bishop Home, Watts, Johnson, 

Luther, Sir Thomas Browne 496 

Pastors. — Editor, Robert Hall, Law, South .... 404 
Perseverance. — Editor, Johnson, Goldsmith, Colton, 

Smiles, Kean 47 

Personality Forever. — Editor, Murphy, Blair, Cicero, 
Dick, Brewster, Addison, Foster, Dryden, Adam 

Smith, Bently . . 326 

Plighted Love. — Editor, Emerson, Richter, Boyle, 
Carlyle, Rochefoucauld, South, Sidney, Erasmus, 

Johnson, Steele, Addison 197 

Praises. — Editor, Jeremy Taylor . 56 

Prayer. — Editor, Charnock, Franklin, Law, Jeremy 

Taylor, St. Francis de Sales, Robertson .... 69 
Prayers. — Editor, Hall. Wilson, Matthias Claudius, 
Channing, Jeremy Taylor, Arnold, Zschokke. Fene- 
lon, Madame Guyon, Augustine, Robertson . . 544 

Proverbs. — Editor, George Herbert 563 

Prudence. — Editor, Judson, Tillotson 45 

Purity. — Editor, Brooks 238 



598 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

Pursuit of the Ideal. — Editor, St. Augustine, Carlyle, 

Greenwell, Martineau . • . . . . . . . .'.'■' 18 

R 

Recreation. — Editor, Smiles, Hall, Locke 225 

Reformation. — Editor, Thomas Fuller, Brooks, Swift, 

Tillotson, Carlyle, Whately 268 

Repentance. — Editor, Robert Hall, Atterbur} 7 -, Colton, 

Bishop Hopkins 288 

Resignation. — Editor, Burke, Carlyle, Humboldt, 

Montaigne 368 

Rest. — Editor, Robertson 535 

Reward. — Editor, Plato, Ben Azai, Cicero, Emerson, 

Carlyle, Trench 499 

Riches. — Editor, Trench, Thales, Bias, Plato, Gregory, 
St. Chrysostom, Lactantius, Thomas a Kempis, 
Richter 465 

S 
Satisfied. — Editor. Plato, Gregory of Nyssa, Emerson, 
Heraclitus, Hawthorne, Plutarch, Franklin, Starr, 
King, Richter, Beecher, Mountford 333 

Simplicity. — Editor, Thomas a Kempis, Mencius, Swe- 
denborg, Martineau, Longfellow, Fenelon, Frothing- 

ham 103 

Spiritual Thirst. — Editor, Robertson 296 

Sponge, or Fountain. — Editor, Johnson, Henry . . . 189 
Sympathy. — Editor, Isaac Williams, Addison, Burke, 

Jeremy Taylor, Beattie, Robertson 282 

T 

Teachers.— Editor, Burrit, Chalmers, Stanley, Chateau- " 
briand, Ruskin, Ascham, Channing 160 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 599 

Temperance. — Editor, Dr. Franklin, Thales, Addison, 
Burke, Temple, Socrates, Homer, South, Plato, 
Samuel J. May, Horace, Atterbury, St. Augustine, 
Cobbett, Carlyle . .435 

Temptation. — Editor, Mann, Carlyle, Locke, South, 

Ray, Jeremy Taylor, Tillotson 250 

Thanks. — Editor, Sir Thomas Browne, Emerson, Parker 549 

The Angel of Prayer. — Editor, Brooke 255 

The Beautiful Plant.— Editor, Greenwell, Robertson 385 

The Day of Judgment. — Editor, Greenwell, Robert 
Hall, Atterbury, Tillotson 85 

The Divine Law. — Editor, Carlyle, Hooker .... 365 

The Flowers.— Editor, Mrs. Child, Bishop Hall, Smiles 348 

The Great Stone Face. — Editor, Holland .... 494 

The Riddle of the Sphinx. — Editor, Carlyle, Green- 
well, Shairp 337 

The Second Man. — Editor, Griffeth, Sir Thomas Browne 94 
The Seven Words from the Cross. — Editor .... 276 
The Soldier of Christ. — Editor, Greenwell .... 533 

The Two Helpers. — Editor, Burke, C. J. Fox, Robert 

Hall 333 

Time. — Editor, Adams, Gladstone, Colton, Franklin, 

Swift... 140 

Transformations. — Editor, Brooke 517 

Tribulation. — Editor, Thomas Fuller ....... 258 

Truth. — Editor, Robertson, Milton, Schiller, Locke, 
Foster, Bacon, Antoninus, Pythagoras, Confucius, 
Burke, Bishop Watson, Johnson, Ruskin, Tillotson, 
Maria Edgeworth, Whately, Leigh Hunt, South . 453 

Truth and Obedience. — Editor, Channing .... 114 



600 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

U 

Unbelief. — Editor, Carlyle, Chalmers, S. W. Francis, 

Richter, South ey * .■ 342 

Under the Stars. — Editor, Emerson, Burke, Carlyle, 

Coleridge, Dickens 345 

Uprightness. — Editor, Lessing 116 

V 

Virtue. — Editor, Price, Colton 10c 

W 

Wages of Sin. — Editor, Robertson, Carlyle, Thomas 
Fuller, Hobbes, Baxter, Dyer, Leighton, Richter, 
Melvill, Wogan, Prof. Wilson 352 

Wedded Love. — Editor, Adams, Sir Henry Taylor, 
Bishop Hall, Steele, Jeremy Taylor 201 

What to Live for. — Editor, Smiles, Henry, Adams, 

Carlyle 11 

Woman's Work. — Editor, Smiles, Ledyard, Montholon, 

Hawthorne 211 

Work. — Editor, Jacobi, Richter, Leopold, Auerbach, 
Barrow, Donne, Frothingham, Emerson, Socrates, 
Burton 27 

Work and Worship. — Editor, Carlyle 30 

Z 

Zeal. — Editor, Sprat, Robert Hall, Horace Mann, 

Jeremy Taylor 406 



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